EXCLUSIVE: The Prime Minister has been given a top-secret briefing after a Russian nuclear submarine was identified off the coast of Scotland. It comes as President Vladimir Putin vowed to “punish” the West for giving Ukraine long-term missiles and ­a £40billion loan using frozen Russian assets.

Kazan, a state-of the art Yasen-class submarine, was detected on June 5 after an RAF Poseidon P8 anti-submarine aircraft dropped sonar buoys used to detect subsurface activity at depth. An RAF maritime surveillance plane tracked the sub as it headed up the west coast of Ireland to Scotland, passing close to Britain’s nuclear naval base at Faslane. Military commanders feared the loitering 13,800-tonne vessel was probing for weaknesses on NATO’s extreme flank. News of the Russian vessel’s location was passed to the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, with both the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary informed, the Express can exclusively reveal. Kazan was expected to go to Venezuela before landing in Commonwealth nation Guyana where Royal Navy patrol ship HMS Trent was recently deployed as a show of support against increasing border belligerence by Russia-supporting Venezuela.

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