Russian ships routinely sail through international waters near British territory as they pass from ports in northern Russia into the open Atlantic or into the Mediterranean, where they have been involved in Russia's intervention in Syria. Before formally entering Russian naval service, ships are often tested in the international waters of the North Sea, which may have been the case for at least one of the Russian ships when the St Albans arrived to monitor it.
The British Navy did not allege any misbehaviour or territorial violations, and because it does not routinely publicise its encounters with Russian ships, it was not immediately clear how unusual the Christmas movements were.
In its statement, the British Navy said that "the festive season has seen an upsurge in Russian units transiting UK waters".
The navy said that a Russian warship, the Admiral Gorshkov, passed close to British territorial waters and that the St Albans frigate was dispatched to escort it as it passed through the North Sea. It released several grainy photographs of the two ships sailing closely to each other in what appeared to be choppy waters.
The Russian ship is still undergoing testing and has not yet formally entered into service, according to its shipbuilder.
Because the Admiral Gorshkov is still in sea trials, it probably does not yet pose a military threat, said Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the Centre for Naval Analyses.
The Gorshkov is a prime example both of the strength of the Russian naval rearmament and of its shortfalls. Nato leaders have said that Russian naval activity is at levels unseen since the end of the Cold War, the payoff of a modernisation and investment programme that started shortly after Russia's incursion into Georgia in 2008.
But progress has been hampered by shoddy construction and technical difficulties. The Gorshkov is the long-awaited flagship of a new class of stealth missile frigate. Originally scheduled to enter service in 2013, shipbuilders said yesterday that it was still undergoing tests 11 years after construction started.
That pace is significantly slower than is typical for Western warships. The ship was plagued by delays in the delivery of its weapons systems and by an engine fire during construction that kept it moored for more than a year in its shipyard in St Petersburg.
"Unfortunately, no chances have been left to raise the flag aboard the Gorshkov this year," the president of the United Shipbuilding Corp., Alexei Rakhmanov, told the TASS newswire agency. He said the ship's advanced technology was still undergoing evaluations, and that once they were done, it would skip a further testing period and enter military service immediately. The accelerated schedule is a possible sign of pressures following years of delays.
Separately, a Russian intelligence-gathering ship sailed through the English Channel on Monday, tracked by the HMS. Tyne, an 80m-long patrol vessel. And a Wildcat helicopter based in Yeovilton, in southern England near the English Channel, was sent to monitor two other Russian ships, the British Navy said.
British Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach said last week that his nation's doctrine was to closely track Russian vessels that neared British waters. He said that he believed Nato needed to focus on maintaining open lines of communication across the Atlantic in the face of a resurgent Russian Navy.
"Of course, we respect freedom of navigation," he said in an interview, "but equally we also shadow and monitor."
