Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic
\n The Kremlin is suspected of deploying the vessel to stalk the seabed, gathering intelligence that could be used in acts of sabotage.
\n ADVERTISEMENT”We see you.” That was UK Defence Secretary John Healey\u2019s defiant warning to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin after his spy ship was spotted in UK waters this week.The ship, known as Yantar, is operated by a Russian Ministry of Defence agency and officially carries out oceanographic research. But Western officials believe it is used for deep-sea espionage.Yantar is well-known to European governments and is commonly escorted by their naval commands.Yet the ship’s latest passage through European waters comes at a sensitive time: NATO is stepping up its military presence in the Baltic after a power cable was damaged on Christmas Day. Investigations have centred on an oil tanker suspected to be part of the Kremlin\u2019s sanctions-busting shadow fleet.\u00a0It follows a raft of similar incidents suspected of being acts of sabotage, which have deepened fears that Europe\u2019s undersea communications cables, gas pipelines and power interconnectors are vulnerable targets in Russia\u2019s hybrid war.Euronews\u2019 fact-checking team delves into what we know about Yantar and its operations.What do we know about Yantar?Yantar has been operating for Russia\u2019s underwater research agency, GUGI, since 2015 under the guise of research.GUGI is considered a secretive outfit. Originally founded as part of the Russian navy, it now operates independently for the Ministry of Defence. In addition to Yantar, its fleet includes several specialised submarines, some of them nuclear-powered.Yantar is specifically designed for intelligence gathering. It can hover over a location and deposit and retrieve objects from the seabed. It also hosts manned deep-sea submarines that can reach 6,000 metres below water and deep-sea robots that are tethered to the ship.Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) analyst H I Sutton, who specialises in submarines and sub-surface systems, described the ship as a \u201cspecial, unique\u201d mothership.\u201cYantar, I would speculate, was intended to conduct seabed operations that didn’t require the extreme stealth of the submarines, and it could do it much cheaper,\u201d he explained.Yantar is equipped with electronic sensors for mapping the seabed and a dome for communications, indicating it is likely used to map the network of critical pipelines and network cables that connect Western countries.When did it enter UK waters and why was it pursued by the Royal Navy?Yantar was first detected on Monday 45 miles (83.3km) off the British coast, inside the UK\u2019s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).According to Euronews\u2019 analysis of the vessel\u2019s tracking data, on Tuesday it had passed through the Channel, heading eastwards towards Belgian and Dutch waters.Its passage through the Channel sees it track close to Atlantic Crossing 1, an undersea telecommunications cable linking the United States with the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany.ADVERTISEMENTOn Friday, the vessel was in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden, according to marine tracking data, suggesting it was heading back to a base in St Petersburg.The UK sent two Royal Navy ships, HMS Somerset and HMS Tyne, to track Yantar on Wednesday. The Ministry of Defence says it “changed the navy\u2019s rules of engagement” to allow the ships to get closer to the vessel.Experts say it is normal for Russian vessels to be escorted while passing through European waters. But in a highly unusual move, a Royal Navy submarine was also authorised to surface close to the Russian ship.”I can’t remember that ever happening before. It\u2019s not generally something you tend to advertise to your opponents,” Mike Plunkett, a naval expert for Janes Intelligence, told Euronews.\u00a0ADVERTISEMENT”I think it was a message to the Russians: We know what you do with this ship. We watch you.”The UK\u2019s defence secretary said that the vessel was a “spy ship” used for “mapping the UK\u2019s critical underwater infrastructure.”It marks the strongest public rhetoric from any European government yet about Yantar\u2019s intelligence-gathering operations.Where else has it been spotted in European waters?Yantar was escorted from Irish and British territorial waters in November after it was seen “loitering over UK critical undersea infrastructure,” according to the UK defence secretary.ADVERTISEMENTLater in November, the ship was detected entering the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar before stopping at the port of Algiers.Yantar was then sent to survey the wreck of MV Ursa Major, a Kremlin-linked cargo ship which sank in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria following an explosion onboard on 23 December.It is believed Ursa Major was transporting weapons from Syria, where Kremlin-aligned president Bashar al-Assad was toppled earlier in December, casting doubt over the future of Russia\u2019s military bases in the country.The ship\u2019s owner company, closely associated with the Kremlin, has described it as an “act of terrorism”.ADVERTISEMENTNaval analysts widely consider Ursa Major\u2019s sinking suspicious. While little is known about Yantar\u2019s mission to survey the damage, naval analyst Sutton says it was likely gathering evidence about its sinking and potentially “retrieving or destroying” sensitive equipment.Could information gathered by Yantar be used for future acts of sabotage?There is no declassified intelligence to prove Yantar\u2019s mapping operations have been used in suspected acts of sabotage, where vessels drag their anchors across the seabed in a bid to sever cables.\u00a0But Yantar\u2019s suspicious activity and the frequency of suspected sabotage means Europe is increasingly alert to Russia\u2019s threat.Last April, a critical undersea communications cable to a Norwegian air base in the Arctic was damaged. In November, two cables in the Baltic Sea were severed, including the only undersea data cable connecting Finland with central Europe. ADVERTISEMENTInvestigations into the latest suspected sabotage, which saw the Estlink-2 cable damaged in the Baltic on Christmas Day, have centred on an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia\u2019s so-called shadow fleet.\u00a0While the Washington Post has since cited Western officials claiming it was likely an accident, European politicians have hinted at an intended act of sabotage orchestrated by Moscow.\u201cI think it\u2019s unlikely all of them (the incidents) were accidents. Something is going on there, whether it’s a deliberate campaign or just a test to see whether it’s even possible to break a cable with an anchor,\u201d Mike Plunkett of Janes Intelligence said.Using its shadow fleet provides the Kremlin with an \u201cextra layer of deniability,\u201d Plunkett explained. The fleet’s ownership, management, and flagging arrangements are all opaque, making it difficult for Western authorities to investigate or trace control of the vessels back to Russia.ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic The Kremlin is suspected of deploying the vessel to stalk the seabed, gathering intelligence that could be used in acts of sabotage. ADVERTISEMENT”We see you.” That was UK Defence Secretary John Healey\u2019s defiant warning to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin after his spy ship was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-178925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178927,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178925\/revisions\/178927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}