When Russian ships first started skulking around the Irish coast a decade ago, loitering above a seabed criss-crossed by transatlantic cables, Irish naval officers said it felt like the cold war was “starting up again”.
The arrival of more and more suspicious vessels stoked fears that Russia was mapping the location of underwater infrastructure crucial to global communications and financial transactions.
But the Irish navy could only look on, despite the mounting threat to cables that by some estimates carry more than a quarter of transatlantic data every day and the growing alarm of friendly countries such as the UK and the US.
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