Among the gorse bushes, close to the beaches where surfers catch their morning wave, lie a series of undersea cables critical to British daily life, and on Vladimir Putin’s target list for sabotage.
Running directly into Cornwall’s picturesque coastline, these cables are on the front line to protect Britain’s communications infrastructure, and any breakages – or destruction – risk crippling key services like hospitals, banks and mobile telecoms.
These cables are resilient, and built to sustain damage, accidental or otherwise. But fears of sabotage to these cables – and on the soil where their unassuming landing stations are located – have heightened as Russia wages its “grey-zone” war against Britain, with potential attacks ranging from cyberwarfare to firebombings.
Sir Gwyn Jenkins, the Royal Navy’s chief, warned earlier this year that Russia could attack the UK’s underwater cables during day one of any conflict with Nato. And the Telegraph reported this week that Russia has been deploying fishing trawlers to spy on key sea cables around the British Isles.
“They will definitely be interested in the cables landing in Cornwall or Suffolk, and, in addition to exploiting land-based vulnerabilities, are likely looking for weak spots much further ashore as well,” said Katja Bego, author of Deep Connections: The Hidden Battles to Control Subsea Cables.
The seaside spots ‘especially vulnerable’ to sabotage
Despite worrying signs that Moscow is monitoring cable routes out at sea, the biggest threat of sabotage may lie at remote spots along Britain’s coastline. A parliamentary report published last September warned that the landing stations where the cables reach shore may be “the most vulnerable part of the system”.
The UK has around 60 civilian cables connecting to the outside world, carrying 99 per cent of our data, according to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS). As an island nation, they are vital for connecting Britons to the global internet.
While military cables are a carefully-guarded secret, civilian cables are operated by private companies and the landing stations housing them are not concealed.
In its September report, Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) said security risks were intensified by the fact that many landing stations house multiple cables, with the sleepy Cornish town of Bude housing nine alone. The i Paper understands there are several landing stations in the Bude area connecting these cables with data centres elsewhere in the country, though the exact number is unknown.
Lowestoft in Suffolk is also an area of concern, with five cables running into it, according to the report. Blackpool in Lancashire, Highbridge in Somerset and the coastal stretch near Ramsgate and Broadstairs in Kent also host multiple cables.
The committee warned of “worrying levels” of concentration. “Some could be rendered inoperable by sabotage,” the report stated. “Cyberattacks are a further worry.”
Bego, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, and Alasdair Wilkie of the Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement told The i Paper large numbers of cables had been laid close together in certain seaside locations for practicality and cost reasons – not designed with an attack in mind.
“It makes it especially vulnerable to the targeting of clusters of cables or sabotage on land – if someone wanted to target landing stations,” Bego said.
The system is resilient enough to reroute data if one cable is attacked, she said. But a large number of cables being cut at the same time could be “quite catastrophic” to Britain’s digital communications, she added.
Wilkie said there was enough “redundancy” within the network that data could be re-routed if one cable was damaged.
“The most potentially vulnerable points are on land. It is potentially easier to disrupt there,” he said. “The industry needs to look at the Russian threat, and threat from other bad actors – it’s something we’re monitoring. But the Russians need the cables too – they need them for their own propaganda. So they may be keen to know where they all are, but I think they understand that damaging them could hurt them too.”
As the JCNSS report said: “We agree that severe disruption risks are low… But given the deteriorating security environment and the UK’s growing military role in Europe, we can no longer rule out the possibility of UK infrastructure being targeted in a crisis. We are also not confident that the UK could prevent such attacks or recover within an acceptable time period.”
Putin ‘definitely interested’ in cable stations
So far, sabotage has mainly been done at sea – including a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker that dragged its anchor along the seabed between Finland and Estonia for almost 60 miles in December 2024.
Some £65bn of UK economic activity relies on the subsea cables, including fibre optic cables, according to the Government.
The Telegraph found more than 500 incidents in which Russia-linked fishing vessels hovered above sections of cables . One of the vessels reportedly crossed back and forth over two cables that run from Bude: Google’s transatlantic Grace Hopper cable, and Amitie, which links Britain with Europe.
Any attack on subsea infrastructure would require the exact position of cables on the seabed, say experts. Russian fishing vessels may be spying to give Moscow “even more granular detail” on precise cable routes, Bego said.
But surfers and anglers at Bude would be unlikely to see Putin’s spy boats from the beach, she said. The Russians will probably want to exploit any vulnerabilities on land or are “likely looking for weak spots much further ashore” – rather than in harbour bays or surfing waters.
‘We do feel quite vulnerable’
Google’s Grace Hopper data cable was pictured being laid at Crooklets Beach in Bude in 2021. Several of the area’s cables converge inland at a terminal building at Skewjack, the site of a historic RAF base, further south in Cornwall.
The county is also home to a GCHQ monitoring base near Bude and to HMNB Devonport, the biggest naval base in western Europe, adding to the risk of “hybrid” Russian sabotage in the region.
Recent months have seen an increase in seen an upturn in “grey-zone” warfare that several European governments have attributed to Russia – including arson attacks and infrastructure sabotage.
Kevin Rowlands, editor of defence think-tank RUSI’s journal, said the clusters of cables in areas like Bude and Lowestoft “concentrates vulnerabilities” at these sites.
“It means we have to focus our efforts on where they are most needed – on the most important cables, and in the areas of greatest vulnerability.”
Martin Dorey, an environmental writer and campaigner living in Bude, remembers Google’s Grace Hopper cable being installed on the beach without much fuss.
“I suppose we do feel quite vulnerable here,” he said. “It’s partly because of the GCHQ station in the area too. I guess you hope security is in place.”
But he added: “The sea cables – it may be a threat, but it’s such an abstract thing. Everyone is too busy getting on with their lives. There’s an element of wilful, blissful ignorance about it.”
Mike Cohen, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, felt similarly. “It should be relatively easy to work out which fishing vessels are not actually fishing, looking at satellite data and speeds,” he told The i Paper. “That’s not something that’s our responsibility. I would have thought it’s the military’s responsibility.”
Last year’s JCNSS report recommended that security should be strengthened at sea cable landing stations. The Government should also encourage cable providers to connect to land away from “high-concentration” points, it said.
Bego echoed the concern, saying: “There’s not quite enough diversity of locations.”
On Thursday, the Government unveiled plans for new legislation that will increase prison sentences for intentional damage to undersea infrastructure from five to 14 years. Telecoms minister Ian Murray said he hoped it would “deter some of those commercial proxies that might be doing the work for hostile state actors”.
The Government has been contacted for further comment. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.