By Bart H. Meijer and Mark Trevelyan
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -NATO chief Mark Rutte mocked Russia on Monday over the “limping” condition of one of its submarines as Russian authorities denied it had been forced to surface because of technical problems.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet said the diesel-powered submarine Novorossiysk had surfaced off France to comply with navigation rules in the English Channel, and rejected reports it had suffered a serious malfunction.
But Dutch authorities said at the weekend that the submarine was under tow in the North Sea. And Rutte, in a speech in Slovenia, said the vessel was “broken”.
“Now, in effect, there is hardly any Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean left. There’s a lone and broken Russian submarine limping home from patrol,” he said.
“What a change from the 1984 Tom Clancy novel ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Today, it seems more like the hunt for the nearest mechanic.”
VChK-OGPU, a shadowy Telegram channel that publishes purported Russian security leaks, reported on September 27 that fuel was leaking into the hold of the Novorossiysk, raising the risk of an explosion.
NATO’s Maritime Command published photographs on October 9 of what it said was a French navy frigate observing a Russian submarine operating on the surface off the coast of Brittany.
“NATO stands ready to defend our Alliance with constant vigilance and maritime awareness across the Atlantic,” it posted on X, without naming the submarine.
On Saturday, the Dutch defence ministry said the Dutch navy had escorted the Novorossiysk and a accompanying towing vessel, the Yakov Grebelsky, in the North Sea.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet said on Monday that the submarine was conducting a “scheduled inter-fleet transit” after completing tasks in the Mediterranean.
State news agency TASS said the vessel, which entered service in 2014, was part of a group of submarines that carry Kalibr cruise missiles.
(Reporting by Bart Meijer in Amsterdam and Mark Trevelyan in LondonEditing by Frances Kerry)
