SpaceWar.com reports: “Britain and Norway on Thursday unveiled a new defence pact that will see their navies jointly operate a warship fleet to ‘hunt Russian submarines’ in the North Atlantic.

The agreement between the two NATO allies aims to protect critical undersea infrastructure, such as cables, that Western officials say is increasingly under threat from Moscow.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reported that sightings of Russian vessels in UK waters have increased 30 percent in the past two years.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store was met by his UK counterpart Keir Starmer for talks at Downing Street, in London.

Store hailed ‘a very important agreement on defence cooperation and integration’.

‘This is really about the present. This is about acknowledging where Europe stands and what we need to take care of security for the future,’ he added.

The two countries were ‘making significant steps… because we share waters, we share the strategic environment’.

Under the new pact, the two countries will operate a fleet of at least 13 British-built frigates on an ‘interchangeable’ basis.

The fleet ‘will hunt Russian submarines and protect critical infrastructure in the North Atlantic,’ the defence ministry said in a statement…”