The Defence Secretary Interview: The Covert Russian Submarine Operation
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, the defence secretary has revealed the British military has responded to a month-long Russian submarine operation over cables and pipelines north of UK.
John Healey says he deployed a warship and aircraft in response, and the Russian vessels were "monitored 24/7". He says there is "no evidence" of any damage to UK infrastructure in the Atlantic.
Why are the cables so important? What was Russia trying to achieve? Are the UK able to stop them from doing this again in future? Adam is joined by the Defence Secretary John Healey.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello, on Thursday morning, we got a tip off that the Defence Secretary was going to do a surprise news conference in Downing Street. We all assumed it would be something about the Middle East because of everything that's been happening there this week. But it turns out to be something very, very different. It was John Healy revealing a huge UK military operation done in conjunction with Norway |
| 0:26.1 | to shadow three Russian submarines, which were on a secret mission off the shores of the UK. |
| 0:32.7 | And then the Defence Secretary wanted to come to Newscast to tell us all about it, |
| 0:36.5 | which is what you'll hear in this episode of Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattle tail in the class. Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody. That daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no salulu. Take me down to |
| 0:55.9 | Downey Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Defense Secretary, hello. Hello. Now, I remember last |
| 1:03.1 | time you were on newscast, you're in the back of your ministerial car coming back from Plymouth, |
| 1:08.0 | and you were talking to me and Chris about a Russian ship called the Yantar |
| 1:11.6 | that had been in British territorial waters. And here we are again. That's true. I think it was |
| 1:17.3 | November. And it's much better to join you in the studio. So I'm glad to do that. Yeah. So |
| 1:24.1 | you did this surprise news conference in Downing Street on Thursday morning, |
| 1:27.7 | where you were talking about what the Russians had been doing in British waters |
| 1:31.2 | and what Britain had done in response. |
| 1:33.7 | So let's do the first bit first. |
| 1:35.7 | What was actually going on? |
| 1:36.9 | What was Vladimir Putin trying to do? |
| 1:39.3 | Well, you mentioned the spy ship Yantar, which I exposed before. |
| 1:43.0 | This is part of the same secret operation |
| 1:46.5 | that President Putin wants to operate covertly in and around our waters and those of our |
| 1:52.9 | allies. It's part of a, what they call their Googie team. It's a deep ocean research |
| 2:00.7 | capability, and it's designed to be able to survey pipelines |
| 2:05.5 | and cables in peacetime, but then sabotage them in conflict. |
... |
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