Royal Navy vows to protect new Arctic trade lines from future Russian and Chinese 'threat'

First Sea Lord Admiral Tony Radakin laid bare his vision of a ‘new maritime age’ with a ‘global’ and ‘outward-looking’ navy as part of a huge defence strategy shake-up for the future.

And central to this will be the navy’s two huge aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, which will be the backbone of the fleet, ‘acting as the embodiment of global Britain’ for the next 50 years, he said.

Speaking to journalists aboard HMS Prince of Wales at Portsmouth Naval Base, the Admiral declared the UK had a critical role to play in policing the ‘gateway’ to new maritime trade lines in the Arctic ‘opened up by climate change’.

‘Climate change is a concern for all of us, but it is opening up new maritime trade routes across the top of the world, halving the transit time between Europe and Asia – and we sit at the gateway to those routes,’ the First Sea Lord said.

‘But when China sails its growing navy into the Atlantic, which way will it come – the long route, or the short? And these routes skirt the coast of that resurgent Russia. A Russia that is now more active in the Atlantic – our backyard – than it has been for over 30 years.

‘These routes are bigger than just the UK, bigger than Europe. They are part of an £8tn global maritime trade network, the veins and arteries along which the lifeblood of the world’s economy flows.’

Adm Radakin insisted the navy was ‘on watch around the world’ to defend seafaring freedom rights for trade.

But he warned there were nations out there who were determined to ‘threaten’ and undermine this.

‘The maritime sector already brings in £46bn to our economy and supports over a million UK jobs. And it is growing,’ the Admiral said.

‘Our nation’s prosperity, influence and success still come from the sea. But as this grows, so do the threats.’

Among the new emerging dangers was the threat of underwater attacks on critical data cables running along the seabed, he claimed.

‘We all know that data powers the world, from commercial transactions to private emails, from stock exchange trades to computer games, from medical research to television programmes. 97 per cent of that data travels on undersea cables,’ Adm Radakin added.

‘And our adversaries are already threatening these. And this is why the government is committed to developing new capabilities to protect those cables, standing up to this threat on behalf of everyone.’

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The Admiral added the UK had a ‘great responsibility’ and was ‘committed’ to stand ‘shoulder to should’ with other nations.

His comments came as it was revealed Portsmouth Naval Base hosted an international visit from the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week.

The political leader was making a trip to the UK to plead for more support from the UK to tackle Russia’s ‘destabilising behaviour’ in the country.

And during his time in Portsmouth, on Wednesday, Mr Zelenskyy witnessed a signing of a memorandum of intent on HMS Prince of Wales which set out how the two nations would work closer than ever before.

To mark this tighter bond, it was announced that Portsmouth-based Type 45 guided-missile destroyer HMS Dragon would sail to the Ukrainian city of Odessa to show-off her hi-tech weaponry.

Dragon is currently in contested region of the Black Sea as part of her latest operational mission.

But her visit has already ruffled feathers in Moscow, with Russia declaring its Black Sea Fleet was ‘tracking’ the every move of the £1bn warship.

A previous trip by sister ship HMS Duncan to the Black Sea in 2018 prompted an ‘unprecedented’ response from Moscow, with more than a dozen Russian jets swarming the ship and her Nato task group.

Speaking this week, defence secretary Ben Wallace said the UK will now ‘explore’ how it can ‘strengthen’ its ‘special partnership with Ukraine’ to offer more military support to the country.

Dragon is due home before Christmas.

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