The 71,650-ton Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier is the biggest warship ever to be built in Britain, and has been undergoing sea trials since setting sail from Scotland's Rosyth dockyard in June 2017.
Commodore Andrew Betton, commander of the UK Carrier Strike Group, said that other Royal Navy warships in the task group will protect the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier from the so-called “Russian threat” during the carrier's upcoming sea trials in the Atlantic Ocean.
“Russian submarines are more active in the North Atlantic than they have been since the Cold War and we take that very seriously, the ship will be well protected as she makes her transit across the Atlantic,” Betton was quoted by the UK news network ITV as saying.
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He added that the move is not aimed at confrontation because the task group is just heading to “the East Coast of the United States to conduct trials.”
Betton was echoed by Captain Jerry Kyd, the carrier's commanding officer, who said that “the increase in Russian activity we have seen in the last couple of years is frightening and for national security reasons it just underlines why we need to maintain a balanced, strong and able, capable fleet.”
“It's been quite eye-watering, what we have seen in the last couple of years,” Kyd said, pledging “to operate professionally and within the standard laws of the high seas,…
