NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE
According to well trailed reports in the UK media a Russian submarine(s) is lurking in the approaches to the Clyde probably waiting to pick up on a UK SSBN leaving the Faslane base or just probing defences generally.
Its déjà vu for Celtic League we monitored a lot of this activity in the 1970-90 periods particularly documenting the incidents and damage to trawlers (as evidenced in the video from mid eighties):
Everyone thought this sort of problem had ceased with the end of the Cold War heightened tensions between NATO and the Russian Federation means its back on the agenda with the consequent threat to fishing vessels.
Embarrassingly for the UK Ministry of Defence it currently has no maritime reconnaissance aircraft and so two had to be hastily brought in from NATO allies Canada and France.
It’s not clear where the elusive Russian is or indeed whether having caused mayhem it’s scarpered by now but our information is that two days ago the French aircraft (a Bregeut Atlantique 2) was concentrating on an area off the Dumfries coast and in the North Channel. The Canadian aircraft (CP-140) appears to be conducting searches of the area between Northern Ireland and the Western Isles. The various aircraft are operating out of RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.
It’s all shades of that 1966 Alan arkin comedy film ‘The Russians Are Coming’ except that with Russian submarine(s) plus UK ones looking for it if some fishing vessel gets them snagged in their nets it will end in tears!
BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Celtic News
24/11/15
THE CELTIC LEAGUE INFORMATION SERVICE
The Celtic League established in 1961 has branches in the six Celtic Countries. It promotes cooperation between the countries and campaigns on a range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, military activity and socio-economic issues