Russia poses no threat to undersea cables in Britain and other NATO countries, the Russian embassy in London said, after British Defense Secretary John Healey accused Moscow of "malicious activity" at sea, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday, Britain said it had monitored a Russian spy ship in the English Channel for two days and would step up its response to covert operations by Russian ships in an attempt to protect undersea cables.
Healey pointed out that the same ship had been caught sailing over critical British undersea infrastructure several weeks earlier.
"We will continue to raise the alarm about the malicious activity that Putin is directing through the Russian shadow fleet to prevent the financing of his illegal invasion of Ukraine," he said.
Russia has said the accusations are unfounded.
"The British Ministry of Defense's allegations of alleged Russian threats to the undersea infrastructure of the United Kingdom and its NATO allies are completely baseless," the Russian Defense Ministry stressed. embassy in London and added that Russia has never made such threats.
Concerns about potential sabotage of power cables, telecommunications links and gas pipelines are growing due to a series of failures in the Baltic Sea following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces in 2022.