A British warship struck a Russian submarine during a frantic North Atlantic chase.
The incident may be the first collision between Russian and Royal Navy vessels since the Cold War.
It came as tensions between London and Moscow heightened following the probe into the Russian Novichok poison attack in Salisbury, reports The Mirror.
Now tonight it has emerged that Moscow’s hunter-killer, which can hold nuclear torpedoes, brushed into a sonar line being towed by HMS Northumberland.
The British Type 23 frigate had been searching for the Russian sub around 200 miles north of Scotland.
It let out its towed array sonar – a cable covered in hydrophones – to listen for sounds from sub.
But the crew aborted their mission and returned to port for repairs after the cable, as thick as a drainpipe, was “dragged over the submarine’s hull”.
“It was badly chewed up and unusable,” a source told The Sun.
Former frigate captain Commander Tom Sharpe said: “The question is was it deliberate or was it an accident."
He questioned whether it could have been a close pass gone wrong.
An MoD spokesman said: “In late 2020 a Russian submarine being tracked by HMS Northumberland came into contact with her towed array sonar.”
It is believed both vessels were damaged in the collision.
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