Reports have surfaced suggesting that two individuals suspected of being Russian spies managed to enter the United Kingdom surreptitiously aboard cargo ships. Once in the country, they reportedly traveled to locations in proximity to significant military installations and essential government sites.

The i Paper has detailed that these men made their way into the U.K. during the spring and summer of 2025, navigating through ports in Torquay, Middlesbrough, and Grangemouth, located in the northeast of the country.

A source within the U.K. defense community has intimated that these individuals are possibly connected to the military and intelligence networks of President Vladimir Putin.

According to sources, these suspected spies leveraged commercial shipping routes to enter the U.K. clandestinely, thereby avoiding the heavily monitored conventional border entry points.

The pair are alleged to have accessed the country covertly by exploiting commercial shipping routes rather than passing through heavily monitored border entry points.

The ships they used were reportedly neither Russian-flagged nor part of the sanctioned shadow fleet associated with the Kremlin, making them far less likely to attract scrutiny.

A senior NATO official responsible for protecting Europe’s maritime waters told the outlet that intelligence agencies had detected Russian operatives traveling on non-suspicious cargo vessels.

The official said those types of ships offer an ideal way of moving personnel discreetly.

Putin is testing the boundaries of NATO with aircraft incursions, allied states say. (Ramil Sitdikov/Pool/Reuters )

“It would be the most natural place to move people around in that world, and we think it’s going on,” the source said.

“They are not sailing on shadow fleet tankers, they are sailing on all [types of] ships,” the source claimed, adding that Russian agents had monitored and “tested European ports to find weaknesses.”

One of the suspected operatives is reported to have entered the U.K. through Torquay in the South West after traveling from Finland. 

The second, previously seen in Moscow at an intelligence-linked facility, was suspected of traveling from Kaliningrad and entering via Middlesbrough and Grangemouth.

After spending time around the storage facility at Grangemouth, the second operative also traveled to Falkirk, where they visited a retail park.

Suspected Russian operatives entered the U.K. through ports near weapon facilities to test security weaknesses. (John Keeble/Getty Images)

Both British docks were recently proposed by the Ministry of Defense as potential sites for future U.K. weapons factories. 

They are currently unused brownfield locations, increasing concerns over the security implications of the alleged visits.

Elisabeth Braw of the Intelligence Council and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council told the i Paper that it makes sense for Russian intelligence to exploit these weaknesses.

“It doesn’t surprise me that Russia wants to bring certain people into the country even though they can reach people who are already there,” she said.

“They need their own operatives to conduct this sort of activity,” Braw added.