UK Chief of Defence Staff Nick Carter said at the Joint Royal Institute for Security and Defence Studies annual conference on December 17 that the presence of Russian ships near UK territorial waters speaks to the threat to Euro-Atlantic security posed by Russia.
“Our armed forces are responding to threats from other states. The most serious threat in the Euro-Atlantic region comes, of course, from Russia, and as we have seen recently, Moscow is willing to test [the response] of Britain and our NATO allies”, – Carter said.