By Tom Sharpe*
A Russian diesel-electric submarine is currently on a surface transit of the North Sea being escorted by the Dutch Navy. The Novorossiysk is the same boat that reportedly suffered a “damaged fuel system” in the Mediterranean towards the end of last month and left the Mediterranean under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy’s Gibraltar patrol boats.
It looks as though that sub is not well and is being accompanied by a Russian naval tugboat, leading Mark Rutte, the head of Nato, to say, “What a change from the 1984 Tom Clancy novel ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Today, it seems more like the hunt for the nearest mechanic.”
