British troops have mounted a top-secret operation in support of police to test how hostile states such as Russia might gather intelligence and carry out sabotage attacks on critical national infrastructure, the Sunday Express can reveal. The covert mission took place in Manchester in June and has only now come to light through an internal Royal Marines publication.
It saw plain-clothes soldiers from 45 Commando disguised as foreign operatives to infiltrate security sites across the city – including Manchester Airport. Codenamed Lightning Manc, the exercise formed part of Greater Manchester Police’s counter-espionage programme and was designed to test the UK’s resilience against both intelligence-gathering and physical disruption by a hostile state.
Crucially, the scenario went beyond surveillance.
Teams were tasked with probing vulnerabilities for sabotage – from attempts to smuggle disguised military communications kit through airport security to establishing covert command nodes capable of directing follow-on strikes if local networks were disabled.
The aim was to expose the weak points that an adversary could exploit, not merely to measure how information might be gathered.
In the scenario, commando mortar troops acted as an advanced Russian landing force tasked with identifying command and communications nodes ahead of notional follow-on troops.
Working alongside police, around 40 undercover commandos arrived in June to mount surveillance on key sites and to test airport and city security.
At one point, they established a command-and-control node in a central Manchester hotel, which theoretically allowed them to direct operations even if local communications were disrupted.
Teams of cyber, information-management and communications specialists also ran live exercises involving the handover of packages to “acting agents” at Manchester Piccadilly railway station while avoiding CCTV monitored by police observers.
A senior military source said: “Police lack the manpower, and these soldiers can help prepare them to combat real-life threats in mainland Britain. And the concerns are real – just look at what happened Crimea. It was not so long ago that two GRU operatives flew into the UK and tried to murder a former Russian officer and his daughter with Novichok.
“The Royal Marines have moved into a new special-operations capability that could see them at the forefront of any action by hostile state actors.”
He added that warfare is now as much digital as physical.
“We’re entering an era where cyber and information technology are central to national defence. This summer’s cyber-attacks on Marks & Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover weren’t accidental – we’re being tested.”
Security analyst Justin Crump of Sibylline said the operation showed how responsibility for protecting critical infrastructure now rests heavily with local forces.
“The onus to protect our critical national infrastructure on land now falls very much on the shoulders of our police forces. If the Iranian embassy siege of 1980 happened today, it would probably be the police, not the SAS, leading the response,” he said.
“Penetration testing like this is difficult to do in real-life conditions. The commandos used weren’t far removed from the sort of people Russia might deploy – organised, resourceful and willing to act off-script.”
Crump warned that Russia remains the most capable adversary, “a country that views itself as at war with us,” followed by Iran and China, which is more likely to focus on sabotage and cyber-attacks.
“Russia can draw on a wide array of methods, from long-embedded proxies paid £1,000 to destroy a 5G mast to so-called ‘green men’,” he said.
“Exercises like this not only test readiness and expose gaps but are also vital to combat threat fatigue, when those guarding our national infrastructure risk becoming complacent.”
Greater Manchester Police was approached for comment.
