A Russian naval wargame was planned for the point where two key transatlantic cables are just two miles apart, a former First Sea Lord revealed today.
Ex-Head of the Royal Navy Admiral Lord West said the exercise was due to take place in a major strategic area of the the Western Approaches before ministers objected.
Kremlin vessels have previously been accused of spying on underwater links carrying vital information along the seabed.
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Cutting or damaging the cables would disrupt phone calls, internet use and a host of other data - potentially crippling economies.
Interfering the submarine cables is seen as a crucial weapon which could be exploited in a “non-shooting war”.
Speaking in the Lords, former Security Minister Lord West asked the Government if it believed there was “any significance that where the Russian exercise was planned for actually is the point where the two most important transatlantic, fibre-optic cables come within a matter of two miles of each other, or is this just something that was happenstance?”
The exercise was due to take place 150 miles off Ireland’s south-west coast - inside Ireland’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
Tory minister Lord Goldsmith told peers: “Irrespective of whether what the Russians were planning to engage in was illegal - and I think it is generally accepted what they were intending to do was legal - it’s undoubtedly provocative and overly-assertive.”
The operation was switched after Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney protested to Russia’s ambassador to Ireland Yury Filatov.
Lord Goldsmith said: “From the point of view of Ireland and Minister Coveney, the issue has been resolved.”
Moscow envoy Mr Filatov had previously claimed up to four ships would be involved.
Missiles and submarines could also be deployed, he admitted.
But he insisted the exercise was "not in any way a threat to Ireland or anybody else".
