The Royal Navy has bought unmanned ships to guard against Russian submarines that threaten the UK’s critical national infrastructure.

For the first time the force will use an autonomous minesweeping capability that will be used to combat the rapidly evolving threat of naval mines.

The three sets of autonomous minesweeping systems, known as Sweep, will safely clear sea lanes to defeat modern mine threats.

It comes after Nato military chiefs warned earlier this year of the rising threat of global internet blackouts, after Russia was suspected of attacking undersea fibre-optic cables.

Meanwhile, Navy sources told The Telegraph that “every couple of weeks” they are seeing activity from Russian vessels moving through British waters.

On Wednesday, a second Russian naval vessel in a week was tracked passing through the English Channel. Novorossiysk, a Kilo-class submarine, was shadowed by Navy helicopters and a warship as it sailed west through the North Sea and English Channel.