Russian Reconnaissance Ship Blinded British Aircraft With a Laser Near Scottish Territorial Waters

The Russian Yantar reconnaissance vessel blinded a British P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft with a laser.

Navy Lookout reported on this.

The incident took place in the waters off Scotland, where the ship was on the border of the British Exclusive Economic Zone.

According to British Defense Secretary John Hilley, the use of lasers is considered a hostile act because they can blind pilots or cause long-term damage to their eyesight.

It is worth noting that the British plane was monitoring the Russian Yantar, a reconnaissance ship of the Russian Navy designed to monitor underwater infrastructure.

The vessel had previously passed by Britain and crossed the waters of the North Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Norwegian Sea, where the incident occurred.

Currently, the Russian ship is being monitored by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, with surface warships including the Type 23 frigate HMS Somerset, which was recently deployed in the region to monitor and tow hydroacoustic equipment for detecting submarines.

It should be noted that this is not the first time this reconnaissance vessel has used a laser.

In July 2025, the Yantar also reconnoitered underwater infrastructure off the coast of Northern Scotland, where, according to the Royal Air Force, it used a laser against the pilots accompanying the ship.

Militarnyi previously reported that the Chinese military used a laser to target a German aircraft flying in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in the interests of the European maritime security operation ASPIDES.

The source of the radiation could have been a ground-based installation at a Chinese logistics base in Djibouti, where there have been incidents of laser injuries to American pilots.

In May 2018, two American pilots of a C-130 military transport aircraft suffered “minor” eye injuries as a result of exposure to a “military-grade” laser in Djibouti. The Pentagon then concluded that China had deployed them.