Ed Milliband’s green power plans could leave Britain more vulnerable to a Russian attack (Image: Getty )
Britain could be more exposed to attacks from and other malign forces due to green power plans, it has been warned.
The energy secretary is racing to ramp up Britain’s offshore wind capacity as part of a drive to meet Labour’s zero targets, which could leave the UK reliant on this energy source to keep the lights on.
But Miliband’s pledge to bring “the most ambitious reforms to the country’s energy system in generations” could pose a stark problem for the UK.
It’s to do with the subsea cables used to power the offshore turbines, which in recent months and years are thought to have been a target of the West’s adversaries.
The latest when an outage was discovered on one of two major underwater power links between Finland and Estonia.
Ed Milliband is planning to ramp up the UK’s offshore wind capacity (Image: Getty)
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Authorities in Finland claimed that a Russian vessel deliberately severed one of two huge cables in an area between Finland and Estonia.
The Eagle S, which departed from a Russian port on Christmas Day, is alleged to be part of President ’s ghost fleet.
While the Kremlin has denied involvement, this is not the first time this so-called “grey zone” tactic has been used.
In November, two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed.
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Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said at the time that officials had to assume “sabotage”.
Emma Salisbury, an associate fellow at the London-based Council on Geostrategy, said: “Grey zone warfare of exactly this type is going to be a huge issue this year.
“Given the importance of subsea cables and other infrastructure to the UK’s energy needs, it’s an area where I could see a lot of threats coming to the fore in a very similar way to what we’ve seen in the Baltic.”
Such an attack on the UK’s subsea cables that link turbines to the mainland could spark widespread blackouts across Britain.
John Healy has announced a plan to protect Britain’s energy grid (Image: Getty)
Around 20 % of the country’s power supplies came from wind farms in 2024.
And with Miliband’s plan to have 60 gigawatts of installed offshore wind capacity by 2030,
This comes at a time of high tensions between the West and , which continues its aggression against and has ramped up threats against Kyiv’s allies that are supporting the war-torn nation.
But the Government is aware that vulnerable infrastructure must be protected, with Britain and a group of allies launching a defence operation led by the Joint Expeditionary Force.
It will use artificial intelligence to seek out threats to subsea cables by tracking the movement of a “Russian shadow fleet”.
Defence Secretary John Healey announced on Monday: “The UK and JEF are leading the way in providing support to our allies to help safeguard the offshore infrastructure we all rely on against potential threats.”
Russia’s naval vessels could damage energy cables (Image: Getty)
He claimed the operation – dubbed Nordic Warden – would “help protect against both deliberate acts of sabotage as well as cases of extreme negligence which we have seen cause damage to underwater cables”.
Brandon Weichert, a former US congressional staff member and geopolitical expert, previously told Express.co.uk how “devastating” an attack on Europe’s subsea cable network could be.
He said: “Should the Russian Navy manage to cut even a fraction of those undersea cables (which I suspect they will), Europe will be disconnected from the rest of the world, or at least significant parts of it, and communications will be disastrously slow.
“Satellites will be essential for providing critical bandwidth but, and China have plans to disable our vital-yet-vulnerable satellites that orbit the Earth that, in conjunction with the cutting of critical undersea communications cables linking Europe to the rest of the world, would effectively isolate Europe (and certainly ) from the US.