British jets have intercepted an “unsafe” Russian aircraft after it repeatedly harassed a Royal Navy ship, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has revealed.
A Russian “Bear-F” maritime patrol aircraft flew “unnecessarily close” to the UK’s largest warship – HMS Prince of Wales – and dropped tens of sonobuoys (portable listening devices) near by. Breathtaking photos showed British fighter jets scrambling to intercept the Bear, before escorting it out of the area.
The Russian aircraft repeatedly “passed at low altitude and unnecessarily close to HMS Prince of Wales and dropped a large number of sonobuoys in close proximity to the carrier,” the MoD said on Monday, adding that the incident was “unsafe and unprofessional”.
The incident took place last Thursday, just two days before the Defence Secretary, Dan Jarvis, visited the ship.
The sonobuoys – sonar devices dropped from aircraft or ships, usually to detect and track submarines – were dropped dangerously close to the vessel while jets flew near by, causing a serious risk of a collision.
The devices are often equipped with underwater microphones and radio transmitters that can emit loud and disruptive sounds, but it is not clear if they made a noise on this occasion.
F-35B fighters launching from HMS Prince of Wales to intercept a Russian military aircraft (Photo: PO Phot Chris Sellars/ UK MOD Crown Copyright 2026)One official briefed on the incident said Russia was most likely intending to harass the Navy, rather than attempting to track vessels. The Navy made repeated attempts to contact the Russian aircraft to find out the crew’s intentions and advise them of the safety of flight risk involved with approaching the carrier during flying operations, but was ignored, insiders said.
It was the latest incident in a string of acts of low-level aggression against countries in the Nato military alliance, of which the UK is a part, which supports Ukraine and commits to mutual defence.
Russia has been accused of repeatedly violating Nato airspace with drone incursions in Europe, as well as sabotage of deep-sea cables and fuelling divisive disinformation. These acts are often dubbed “sub-threshold” or “greyzone” acts, falling deliberately just under the threshold to trigger all-out war.
The interception comes after reports suggested that Russia was planning a possible incursion into Poland – either through missile attacks or a small number of ground troops – to test Nato defences, although this has not been confirmed.
Royal Navy F-35B fighter intercepts the Russian military aircraft last Thursday (Photo: Chris Sellars/Ministry of Defence via AP)Shortly before that, a Russian warship believed to be involved in transporting Russian oil through the English Channel fired warning shots at a British yacht sailing near by.
Dr Justin Bronk, an air power expert at the defence think-tank Rusi (Royal United Services Institute), said that the manoeuvre created a risk of a serious collision in a busy environment in which ships, jets and helicopters were operating closely together – and was there to send a message to the UK.
“They were essentially going straight through the traffic pattern of what is effectively a mobile airfield with absolutely no communication and no co-ordination, relying therefore on the professionalism and safe handling of the battle managers on the ship – on the UK side – to avoid a potential collision,” Bronk said. “They’re enormous airplanes. They’re not particularly manoeuvrable, and they’re quite fast. So, if they had seen something late in the traffic pattern, they wouldn’t necessarily have been able to avoid it.”
The Russian Tupolev Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, Nato name ‘Bear’, was flying low and dropping sonobuoys dangerously close to the UK’s Carrier Strike Group (Photo: PO Phot Chris Sellars/ UK MOD Crown Copyright 2026)Bronk said that the move was “deliberate disruption” to signal “hostile feelings” over the UK’s activity in the Arctic, because the area is “a core part of Russia’s nuclear doctrine”.
“The Russian aircrew are perfectly capable of being professional and safe, and usually are,” Bronk said. “Therefore when they’re not, they’re doing it deliberately.”
The UK is participating in a Nato mission called Arctic Sentry, designed to bolster security in the Arctic and North Atlantic. Bronk said that the Russians “really don’t like Nato naval patrols towards the far north… because that’s where they send their ballistic missile submarines”.
The UK’s F-35B fighters launching from HMS Prince of Wales on Thursday (Photo: PO Phot Chris Sellars/ UK MOD Crown Copyright 2026)“It’s a longstanding part of their nuclear doctrine that if Russia itself was hit by an overwhelming nuclear strike, there would still be nuclear missile submarines under the Arctic,” he added.
Bronk said that some of these submarines would fire immediately and some “would essentially go to the bottom, wait up to six months, and then surface see who was still transmitting radio broadcasts, and if it wasn’t Russian, then fire their nuclear missile payloads”.
“So, they do tend to get more aggressive with any Nato forces that perfectly legitimately patrol up north.”
Bronk noted that Russia could have chosen to make a “more explicit threat” by flying over aircraft carrying large, anti-ship missiles, to show “look, we’ve got this thing that you can’t necessarily protect yourself against, and is specifically designed to kill aircraft carriers”.
“They didn’t do that, so it more reads as deliberate disruption and a signal of hostile feeling, rather than a threat,” he added. “It fits within a wider trend of significantly more aggressive Russian actions in Nato nations’ territory, airspace and waters over the past 12 months.”
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