OP KEYSTONE — The TOP SECRET Story of The Royal Navy & RAF Mission In the Barents Sea

(This article was originally published at https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com/2024/04/op-keystone-top-secret-story-of-royal.html)

At around 2pm on Monday 5th November 1984, at the Phoenix Wharf in Rainham, a small port on the river Thames, an MOD delivery van from the Admiralty Research department at Portland drove up to the Russian merchant ship ‘Ikaterina Belashova’, a freighter owned and operated by the Soviet State Shipping Lines. It was unloaded, and a large crate weighing 1.5tonnes was hoisted aboard. The bill of lading simply stated that the cargo was ‘One Crate, Navigation Buoy’ and was being shipped from the MOD in London to Archangel in the USSR. Shortly afterwards the Belashova slipped her moorings, and began the long journey back to the Barents Sea, returning the navigation buoy that in preceding weeks had been ‘acquired’ by the Royal Navy and become the unwitting star of a diplomatic incident. This article is about Operation KEYSTONE, the formerly TOP-SECRET Royal Navy mission to gather intelligence in the Barents Sea in 1984, and how the Admiralty came into possession of a pair of Soviet navigation buoys…

The fact that the Royal Navy, like all other credible navies, conducts intelligence collection is not, of itself, secret. Warships provide the perfect platform to carry out intelligence work, able to use their aerials and antenna to monitor the airwaves, their sonars to listen to underwater activity and their crews to take pictures that can provide valuable intelligence on the opposition’s capability and intent. Ships can loiter for days on end in international waters, ostensibly minding their own business while hoovering up all manner of vital information. Sometimes this sort of mission is conducted more covertly — the Royal Navy submarine service has a long history of sending its vessels to places they shouldn’t be, and in the process conducting some breathtakingly audacious activities. At other times surface ships can be used in the same way, conducting ‘flag waving’ exercises in remote waters to make clear that no stretch of international waters is off limits to the Royal Navy.

HMS BATTLEAXE

In the early 1980s the Barents Sea was an area of significant intelligence value. Home to the Soviet Northern Fleet, it would in wartime be an area of huge operational importance. The Soviet Union was expected to deploy its formidable force of surface ships and attack submarines from ports in the region to sail into the North Atlantic, trying to find, attack and sink reinforcement convoys bringing badly needed troops, equipment and materiel to Europe to reinforce the NATO armies there. Stopping these ships and submarines would be a vital task, as every ship was essential to providing reinforcements to buy time for a diplomatic solution to be found, before the munitions ran out and the war became a nuclear holocaust.

At the same time the Soviet Union would also be deploying their fleet of ballistic missile submarines out into the cold arctic waters in the high north, hoping that they would be able to hide on patrol, protected by other nuclear attack submarines, surface ships, mines and sonar defences in so-called ‘bastions’ — areas of water where it would be nigh on impossible for NATO forces to reach in wartime. This would enable the survival of the Soviet SSBN force, a vital part of their nuclear arsenal, and in turn a high priority in the early stages of the conflict for NATO to destroy. It was likely that the Barents Sea would have been one of these so-called ‘bastions’, making it an area of enormous intelligence collection importance.

To help maximise NATOs chances of success, it was essential to understand as much as possible about the Soviet Navy and the threat it posed. Every radar signal, sonar pulse, fire control radar noise mattered as it could be categorised, analysed and defences planned against it. By understanding the signals given off by a (for example) KRIVAK class frigate, it would be possible for a warship to know what was being fired at it, how best to jam it and the potential countermeasures to use. Similarly, understanding sonar noises would help a ship know what they faced, and help determine if they had an ALFA or a ZULU in the area. NATO invested huge amounts of time and effort in trying to understand their potential enemy and its capabilities. The same was also true in reverse…

During the 1980s there was an increasing level of assertiveness to NATO patrols in the Barents Sea and beyond. In part this was due to a more aggressive combat doctrine, that would see NATO forces go into the region to find and sink Soviet forces in wartime. It was also due to a desire to prevent the Barents from becoming a Soviet ‘sea’ — recognised as international waters, the UK and US felt it important to continue to sail in the region to make clear that it was not ‘off limits’ to non-Soviet vessels. This meant that there was significant value in sending ships into the region to both fly the flag and collect intelligence on Soviet capability.

The Royal Navy began sending an annual patrol into the Barents Sea in around 1981, when HMS GLASGOW and RFA OLWEN were deployed in the region on an intelligence gathering patrol. The 1982 patrol was cancelled due to the Falkland’s War. In 1983 HMS LIVERPOOL and RFA OLMEDA were deployed into the region again. These missions were seen as valuable, with one file noting that the 1983 deployment ‘collected intelligence of high value’. They were also seen as risky, with the 1981 patrol seeing an aggressive Soviet response to the British presence, including the collision between HMS GLASGOW and Soviet warship ‘Admiral Isakov’. The view of the Royal Navy was that the Soviets were so aggressive in their reaction to the presence because they demonstrated:

‘a measure of Soviet frustration at a Western high seas presence (and one which the Russians will suspect is directed at sensitive Soviet intelligence targets) in an area the USSR has come to regard as its own’.

It was noted that the Soviets were manufacturing incidents or complaints to try to force the abandonment or curtailment of the NATO presence. With no legal means of stopping the ships from sailing in these waters, it was only by reacting aggressively and trying to manufacture confrontation that the Soviets could hope to respond. Indeed, the advice to Ministers about the importance of these missions was clear:

“It is important not to let the Russians frighten us off by aggressive action such as that in 1981. Quite apart from the intelligence value of these patrols, the Soviet Union should not be left under any illusion that they exercise some form of veto over Western naval activities on the high seas. They have no compunction about operating hard by Western territorial waters or about monitoring closely UK and NATO maritime activity.”

In mid-1984 the Royal Navy planned to conduct a further patrol, this time using HMS BATTLEAXE, a Type 22 Batch 1 frigate, optimised for ASW, and the RFA fleet tanker ‘OLMEDA’ to patrol in the Barents Sea. The intention was to stay in the region from 01 July to 5th August to collect intelligence on Soviet activities. Although conducted by the Royal Navy, this was in fact an Angl0-US intelligence collection mission, with the US Government seeking approval to install SIGINT capabilities on RFA OLMEDA to help meet their own intelligence requirements (although the carriage of US SIGINT equipment on an RFA platform still required UK ministerial authorisation).

The installation of the US SIGINT equipment (made by the Argon company, which remains in business to this day) was more complex than expected. The files indicate a mild diplomatic issue with Treasury Solicitors demanding that the US sign an indemnity waiver, while the US cited the 1942 BRUSA act as reasons not to. It led to a surprising level of legal debate about what acts were in force and the challenges of intelligence collection — although it was eventually signed off.

RFA OLMEDA

To maximise intelligence benefits from the operation, it was intended that the RAF would also support through four Nimrod sorties. The planning for this part of the mission involved the aircraft departing RAF Kinloss, refuelling west of the Lofoten Islands, then ‘descending below Soviet radar coverage for a covert entry to the operating area’ — in other words, the Nimrod would sneak towards Soviet airspace, and conduct low level activity for as long as possible without detection — for example tracking submarines or surface ships based on intelligence collected from the RN deployment. This would represent a significant long-range mission for the Nimrod crews, and one that was not without its risks either.

In the original submission it was proposed that the Nimrod would fly to within 25 miles of the Soviet Union, just at the point where its ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’ (ADIZ) began — the point when Soviet interceptors would be deployed to find out the identity of the intruder in their neighbourhood. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office was concerned about the risks from this activity though and noted in its supportive reply about the operation to the MOD:

“As far as the Nimrods are concerned, we would prefer that they should move in from 50nm — 30nm, i.e. not right up against the Soviet Air Defence Identification Zone. The Soviet reaction to US aircraft which flew up to the edge of the ADIZ after the KAL incident last year was vigorous.

As you are no doubt aware emotions were running high at the time, we would expect that the Soviet Air Defence would still be on a high state of alert and quick to react. We think it is better to change one’s practise by gradual steps with the Russians. Unless there are overriding operational reasons for flying up to 25nmn, we would prefer for the approach limitation to stand at 30nm from the Soviet coast’.

Other discussions between the Royal Navy, MOD and FCO focused on what the ships could do while operating in the region. The use of SIGINT collection was authorised, and additionally for intelligence collection purposes, Ministers approved that HMS BATTLEAXE could operate her fire control radars while on patrol to track and monitor Soviet missile and aircraft flight profiles. This apparently had been done previously without reaction from the Russian authorities.

With the plans finalised, it was important to get ministerial approval for the missions themselves. The Royal Navy operates under the control of ministers and is scrupulous about seeking their permission for intelligence related operations — particularly when there is a risk. The archives show that when the RN wanted to conduct intelligence missions during the Cold War, it was done within carefully defined parameters, and with Ministers of increasing seniority, up to and including the Prime Minister signing them off depending on the level of risk they posed .Sometimes though the RN wasn’t always quick to do so — files from No10 show that James Callaghan’s Private Office was annoyed in 1976 at the very late notice submission for approval for HMS COURAGEOUS to conduct intelligence missions in the eastern Med, and for no less than 7 intelligence collection operations against a visiting Soviet warship to Portsmouth.

In the case of OP KEYSTONE approval was sought from both the Secretary of State for Defence and the Foreign Secretary to conduct the operation. Both Ministers approved it, although the FCO noted that they wanted the start of the mission delayed slightly until midday (Moscow time) on 3 July. (“We would prefer that the ships move to, but not into the area described as sensitive under Ministerial rules until Midday on 03 July”) This was to allow:

“The Foreign Secretary to finish his talks in Moscow without the possibility of a major collision being dealt with face to face across the table from his Soviet opposite number, thus obscuring any other message he would want to get across”.

It is a fascinating reminder of how complex the world of international diplomacy, espionage and intelligence gathering was during the Cold War that even as Sir Geoffery Howe MP, arrived in Moscow for two days of talks, for a visit which in his own words would “be a start in making a better relationship” . The Hansard account of the statement Sir Geoffery made to the House of Commons about this visit are worth reading archive New York Times article from that period “Briton starts a Moscow visit and hopes to ease tensions” becomes a fascinating read when you realise that while the Foreign Secretary arrived in Moscow hoping to improve relations, he had personally signed off on the deployment of a Royal Navy mission to enter the Barents Sea hours after he had left Moscow to spy on the Soviet Union.

RAF Nimrod MR2

At some point on 3rd July, HMS BATTLEAXE and RFA OLMEDA entered the sensitive patrol areas of the Barents Sea. We do not know what they did, or did not, see, hear or collect during their patrol. The files are notable by their weeding to remove references to the collection value of the operation. We can reasonably guess that they were patrolling near Soviet missile test ranges, based on the assumption that the fire control radars were active and used to track missile flights, but beyond this, the files remain silent.

On 2 August 1984, while on patrol in an area euphemistically referred to in notes as ‘Southeast of Bear Island’, the RN task group came across a series of navigation buoys. Further investigation revealed them to be Soviet buoys. The report noted:

“The buoys were of a type that has been seen before within 25 miles of the Soviet coastline, although this is the first time they have been found in a barrier of this type so far out. They are moored beneath the surface and when they detect a noise they release a float to the surface to transmit a signal to a monitoring station ashore. (Although their purpose is to detect passing ships and submarines, we believe that the frequency range these buoys are capable of operating at renders them ineffective against our modern SSNs). The arrival of our ships in the vicinity activated some of the buoys. The patrol was under instruction to recover any military hardware found. Two buoys were therefore lifted, one by BATTLEAXE, one by OLMEDA. Several other floats were destroyed by running down or by small arms fire”.

This is a rather factual paragraph that raises a number of significant questions. Firstly, how was the Royal Navy aware of the type of navigation buoys being within 25 miles of the Soviet coastline unless it too had been within 25 miles of the coastline. The vaguely imprecise nature of the statement suggests that the buoys were a lot closer in than 25 miles, and that in turn, the Royal Navy had also been a lot closer in -possibly within the 12-mile territorial water limit, on other missions. The second comment of interest is the note about modern SSNs, suggesting that submarines could continue to operate in the region, but older boats or diesel submarines would be at risk of detection — hence the concern about this chain of buoys from a surveillance perspective. Finally, the suggestion that the patrol was acquiring military hardware suggests that they came home with more equipment from elsewhere for intelligence exploitation purposes.

Unfortunately, the British actions were detected by the Soviet Union, and a formal complaint was made. In a submission to the Secretary of State for Defence, it was noted that the Soviet Union had made five complaints:

a) That RFA OLMEDA had hoisted aboard a buoy belonging to the Soviet Navy. This is accurate.

b) That the trawler “SKIKIBERROG SS” had hoisted aboard a second buoy. No such vessel was operating with our ships. Indeed, no trawler by this name or any other was noted in the area by our patrol and no such vessel is registered by Lloyds. It remains possible that such an action occurred, but we have no knowledge at all of it. On the other hand, HMS BATTLEAXE did recover a second buoy, apparently unobserved by the Russians, and it is possible that finding two buoys missing, they fabricated this second claim.

c) That other floats were destroyed by our ships. Accurate although our ships believe that this activity was not observed by the Russians, which is perhaps why the claim is not specific about the place and time. Soviet vessels in the area were also responsible for destroying some buoys, almost certainly to prevent them falling into our hands.

d) That our ships ignored direct signals from Soviet ships referring to ownership of the buoys. I am assured that our ships did not receive any such signals during the incident.

e) That our ships manoeuvred dangerously in contravention of the 1972 International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea. Both the Captain of BATTLEAXE and Master of OLMEDA deny this claim. In any event the circumstances of the incident suggest that if there was a danger of collision it was more likely to have been brought about by the Russians in their attempts to hinder our activity. Moreover, a serious claim would normally be backed by navigational details: that the Russians have not supplied such details casts doubt upon their case.

The Soviet complaint led to a significant amount of debate back in Whitehall about what to do in this case. The UK had possession of two Soviet naval buoys, and they had been formally requested by the Soviet Union to return their property. Over the coming weeks a vigorous debate was had by the Royal Navy and MOD policy officials over what was to happen to the buoys. The view taken by the MOD, which they advised the Secretary of State for Defence on was simple:

“In practise the recovery of military hardware found on the high seas is treated as ‘fair game’ and is undertaken by both the Royal Navy and Soviet Navy. Indeed, a Russian submarine appropriated a sonar buoy dropped by an RAF Nimrod operating with HMS BATTLEAXE earlier on in the course of this very patrol. Thus, the onus is very much on the owner to keep his hardware in sight and control and, if lost at sea, it is practically open to any other party to take it. This is certainly the approach taken by the RN, which correspondingly controls our most sensitive hardware closely. There is every reason to suspect the Russians take the same line. It is likely that the Soviet complaint reflects the Soviet Navy’s embarrassment to losing equipment to the RN within its sight and despite close manoeuvring, rather than to ethical outrage. It can also be argued, honestly if disingenuously, that if the Russians were anxious not to lose them, they could have marked them clearly and issued notices to mariners about their presence. This is the practise for oceanographic buoys and other similar equipment. That the Russians did not do so with these buoys weakens their argument somewhat.”

The Admiralty bill of Lading

The submission goes onto consider at length what to do about that the buoys, before settling on a rather elegant outcome. The Royal Navy decided to accept that it needed to return the buoy that had been seen being hoisted aboard RFA OLMEDA, knowing that it was effectively ‘bang to rights’. The legal advice given though indicated that as no complaint had been made about BATTLEAXE, the RN could keep this buoy as the Soviets had not specifically asked for it back. This then led to a fascinating discussion about whether to dismantle the buoy to be returned for intelligence collection purposes. The general view was that it should be done because:

“that is what the Russians would expect us to do and they would be puzzled if they do not, thus pointing them to the retention of another buoy”

At this stage both the Foreign and Defence Secretary were formally consulted for their views and agreed that the buoy recovered aboard OLMEDA should be returned to Russia, while the BATTLEAXE buoy would remain in the UK for further intelligence exploitation. This was because:

“Now that the Russians are employing these buoys in an advanced acoustic barrier on the edge of the Barents Sea, the intelligence community are anxious to have the opportunity to examine one in detail and in particular to determine its deep water capability”.

The final part of the puzzle was both to make discrete arrangements with the Soviet Navy to return their buoy, which the MOD did via discrete negotiation with the Soviet Naval Attache in London, making clear the Soviets would be footing the bill for all costs incurred. This resulted in due course with the OLMEDA buoy being returned in November 1984 to the Soviet Union.

To prevent the risk of the media getting hold of the incident and turning it into a Cold War crisis, press lines were drawn up to provide a statement to explain why the RN was machine gunning Soviet naval buoys in the Barents Sea:

“A large floating object was recovered by RFA OLMEDA from the sea on 2 August. This object had apparently been deployed by the Soviets to obtain sensitive and secret military information concerning the Royal Navy in the area. The capability of the device to intercept and transmit the acoustic characteristics of naval vessels has subsequently been proved. The sinking of another device was considered a prudent seamanlike action because, in deteriorating weather conditions, recovery of the unit was considered impossible by any ship and therefore the large buoy was a considerable hazard to shipping and was sunk. In this procedure the Royal Navy was following the practise of the Soviet Navy which had also used small arms fire to sink at least one buoy”.

This Royal Navy press release, never issued, was a masterclass in both telling the truth and deception. In making out that the Soviets were to blame by spying on the British, and in suggesting that the RN was merely copying Soviet behaviour in sinking the buoys (and not mentioning that the Soviets sank them to avoid capture by the Royal Navy), the RN attempts to make out it was merely acting in a responsible seamanlike manner. It was a great statement, although the Foreign Secretary may have disagreed with it, as separate correspondence between the Private Secretaries for the Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary noted the Foreign Secs concern about the fact that this incident highlighted that:

“The recovery of buoys and the destruction of others were consistent with existing RN rules. The FCO were unaware of this. The Foreign Secretary… thinks it would be useful for the rules governing the operations to be looked at by MOD and FCO officials to make sure they take careful account of the political implications of the activities undertaken” …

The KEYSTONE patrol area

It was clear that OP KEYSTONE was a highly successful operation on several fronts. Clearly a range of valuable intelligence information was gained, while it also frustrated the Soviet Navy, putting it on the back foot and compromising a key intelligence gathering capability in the form of the acoustic buoys. The Royal Navy acted in the timeless traditions of the Service, sailing the high seas, undertaking what some may consider legally sanctioned piracy and then ramming or engaging Soviet buoys with gunfire to disrupt their operations. This is in addition to the RAF Nimrod force which operated in challenging conditions, in a high-risk environment close to Soviet airspace to track and monitor the Soviet submarine force in its own backyard. The message this operation sent was clear — there are no ‘off limits’ locations for NATO forces on the high seas.

Clearly the Barents Sea deployments continued to be of value to the Royal Navy. Files indicate further deployments occurred in 1985 with HMS NEWCASTLE and Op EQUINOX 1986 with HMS GLASGOW & RFA OLMEDA on Op PAROMEIA 1987, when HMS LIVERPOOL conducted Op PICAMAR in similar waters. Intriguingly in the summer of 1986 the attack submarine HMS SOVEREIGN deployed to the Barents Sea on mission ‘E111’ which was likely to have been a SIGINT collection mission, potentially run at the same time as PAROMEIA. It is harder to work out whether the RAF Nimrod force deployed on these operations, or similar ones, but throughout the late Cold War, the Royal Navy, RFA and RAF were all regular visitors to the Soviet Union’s backyard. What is fascinating is that while the National Archives records system notes these files exist, all but one (OP KEYSTONE) remain closed to the public and retained by the MOD. It is unclear why the KEYSTONE file was opened, particularly as the author can find no other open-source account of it. This file serves as a tiny snapshot into a highly secretive world where no other sources exist that the public can access. The file was only opened in 2017, and given the decline in relations with Russia, it seems unlikely that the other files will be opened at any point soon.

There is one final fascinating aspect to this file that makes them of mild historical significance. The file is a former ‘DS5’ series file, making it part of the Defence Secretariat series of archives. The submissions to Ministers were signed by the Head of DS5 and went up in their name, as Senior Civil Servants. The file runs from 1984–1985 — the later papers are sent up by the then head of DS5, Miss Margaret Aldridge, who later in her career became the Director General of foreign and security policy in the Cabinet Office and who served as Secretary to the Chilcott enquiry. By all accounts she found herself made the head of DS5 rather unexpectedly as her predecessor, whose name can be found throughout the earlier submissions was Clive Ponting, then head of DS5.

Clive Ponting was charged in August 1985 for leaking information in July 1984 to Labour MP Tam Daylell about the sinking of the Belgrano in 1982 and his concerns about a cover up of the sinking. It is extremely odd to read papers relating to some of the most sensitive and secret matters of the British state, authored by someone who only weeks later would, in the eyes of many, betray his nation to share other classified information. It is entirely possible that were he not arrested in August 1984, that he would have been the man responsible for advising Ministers weeks later on how to cover up and conceal the fact that the Royal Navy had taken Soviet Naval property on the high seas and retained it as part of a TOP SECRET mission, which given his leaking of the Belgrano papers for the same concerns, raises a fascinating question about whether he would have felt similar concerns about the perspective of a cover up were the mission to have become public knowledge. One must wonder what he would have done or leaked had he known about the outcome of OP KEYSTONE and the attempts by the MOD press statements to conceal dealings with the Russians and be murky in its prepared public statements to the press about the buoy and Royal Navy activities in the Barents Sea. History may well have been rather different…

The history of these Barent Sea missions remain relevant today as the RN and USN continue to deploy into the region since the decline of relations with Russia. In 2022 NATO warships patrolled across the Barents Sea, reminding modern Russia that it cannot prevent NATO sailing the high seas. What happened on those missions is unlikely to ever come to light publicly, although the Russian Navy will certainly be wary when NATO comes to town again.