{"id":12052,"date":"2026-04-12T05:10:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/12052\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T05:10:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:10:45","slug":"john-swinney-warns-uk-may-not-be-able-to-deal-with-russian-threat-to-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/12052\/","title":{"rendered":"John Swinney warns UK may not be able to deal with Russian \u2018threat\u2019 to Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

The First Minister said he was concerned about revelations of a Russian attack submarine and two spy submarines loitering over critical undersea cables.Craig Meighan and Ruth Suter<\/a> Chief Live News Reporter<\/p>\n

13:54, 11 Apr 2026Updated 15:38, 11 Apr 2026<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Swinney(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

The UK may not have the capability to deal with the \u201cthreat\u201d of Russia\u2019s military off the coast of Scotland, John Swinney<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

The First Minister said he was concerned about revelations <\/a>of a Russian attack submarine and two spy submarines loitering over critical undersea cables in the North Atlantic. He also expressed concerns about the ability of the UK\u2019s armed forces to deal with any potential threats from Moscow.<\/p>\n

Defence Secretary John Healey revealed on Thursday that the UK and its allies tracked three Russian vessels off the UK\u2019s northern coast. A British warship and aircraft were deployed to deter \u201cmalign<\/a>\u201d activity by Vladimir Putin\u2019s regime in waters off the UK\u2019s northern coast, John Healey said.<\/p>\n

He said Vladimir Putin had sought to capitalise on the world being \u201cdistracted\u201d by the Iran war and that he poses \u201cthe primary threat to UK security\u201d. Speaking in Inverness, the UK\u2019s northernmost <\/a>city, Scotland\u2019s First Minister said it was \u201cvital\u201d Scotland\u2019s infrastructure was protected.<\/p>\n

He told MFR (Moray Firth Radio): \u201cI am very concerned <\/a>by the presence of Russian vessels in the North Atlantic, and there\u2019s obviously significant infrastructure that is in the water that involves the communications infrastructure and the energy infrastructure of our country and many other countries. So it is vital that our interests are protected from any threats that might be levelled by the actions of Russian naval vessels and submarines who could damage the infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Healey(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Holyrood campaign trail, Mr Swinney<\/a> said it was \u201cexclusively the responsibility\u201d of the UK Government to protect the UK\u2019s national security. I want to make sure we\u2019ve got the capability to do that,\u201d the SNP leader added. \u201cI\u2019m very concerned that the UK does not have sufficient capability to deal with the Russian threat in the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an issue which I think has got to affect our defence choices, because <\/a>I think we should be investing in the security of the country, protecting that infrastructure, and not investing in nuclear weapons that we can\u2019t use and are prohibitively expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Swinney said he had not had any briefings from the UK Government<\/a> \u201cover this particular threat\u201d but said he had urged ministers in London to ensure infrastructure in the north of Scotland is protected. The SNP leader, speaking on the Holyrood campaign trail, said he had \u201cmade clear\u201d his \u201cfrustration\u201d over the level of dialogue between the Scottish and UK Governments over national security concerns \u201cthat affect the domestic security of Scotland and the domestic powers of the Scottish Government\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI\u2019ve benefited from individual, national security briefings, which I\u2019m grateful for, but I think we need to have more partnership, more dialogue, more engagement, because, as we saw with the Bella 1 tanker, it didn\u2019t take long for something that happened on the high seas to come right into the Moray <\/a>Firth and be an issue that we had to wrestle with.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January, the Russian-flagged oil tanker, previously known as Bella 1 and now named Marinera, was seized by the US south of Iceland before sailing it to the coast of Moray, east of Inverness. The captain and first officer of the tanker were later taken out of UK territory by the US Coastguard. Mr Swinney said at the time the Scottish Government was told about their removal only after the US had done so.<\/p>\n

Angela Constance, Scotland\u2019s Justice Secretary<\/a>, said the situation had shown a lack of respect for \u201cScottish jurisdiction and Scots law\u201d.<\/p>\n

An MoD spokesperson <\/a>said: \u201cThe UK is stepping up to protect the Arctic and High North \u2013 doubling the number of Marines we have in Norway, deploying HMS Prince of Wales to the high north and scaling up joint exercises with Nato allies. As the Defence Secretary said yesterday we\u2019re providing an extra \u00a3100 million for our vital P8 submarine hunting aircraft and we\u2019ve launched the Atlantic Bastion programme, to combine the latest autonomous technologies with the very best warships and aircraft to create a British-built hybrid naval force.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exceptional military <\/a>personnel serving in Scotland and the 11,800 skilled people across the Scottish defence industry are a credit to this country. Their dedication keeps us secure at home and strong abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google\u2019s preferred sources. Click HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The First Minister said he was concerned about revelations of a Russian attack submarine and two spy submarines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3495,1093,3934,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-12052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-john-swinney","9":"tag-sir-keir-starmer","10":"tag-snp","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116390017609907902","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}