• The Philippines said it spotted a Russian submarine in the waters of the South China Sea last week.
• President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the sub's presence in Philippine waters was "very concerning."
• One analyst said it could be Russia signaling to the US that it will aid China amid regional tensions.

The Philippines said it spotted a Russian submarine in the South China Sea last week, in the latest sign of tensions in the contested waters.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said a Russian UFA 490 submarine was seen 80 nautical miles from its coast last Thursday, prompting the Philippine Navy to deploy a plane and a warship to monitor the vessel and establish radio contact with it.

The Russian vessel responded, saying it was waiting for better weather conditions before heading to the port of Vladivostok, in Russia's Far East, per the post.

The Inquirer first reported the news, citing unnamed security sources, including one who said it was a Kilo II-class diesel-electric submarine.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Tuesday the reported presence of the Russian vessel in the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone was "concerning."

He added that any "intrusions" into the West Philippine Sea were "very worrisome."

Last month, Russian state news agency TASS reported that a submarine and a rescue tug had made a port call in Malaysia before Russian and Malaysian navies were due to conduct joint drills in the South China Sea.

Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, a Philippine Navy spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that a rescue tug and a support vessel were spotted near the sub.

He told Agence France-Presse that the incident was not "alarming" but that they were "surprised" because "this is a very unique submarine."

This latest incident comes as tensions in the South China Sea have escalated this year, especially between China and the Philippines, an ally the US is treaty-bound to defend.

This has included clashes between Chinese and Filipino coast guard vessels, including one where swords and knives were brandished.

Hunter Marston, an Asia-Pacific researcher at the Australian National University, said the submarine may have sailed through Philippine waters because it was the fastest route between Malaysia and Russia.

"Alternate routes involve circumnavigating the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos or cutting directly through the Taiwan Strait," he told BI, which add their own geopolitical risks.

But other South China Sea observers said the vessel's presence in the waters could be a message.

Eduardo Araral, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, told The Strait Times that the presence of a Russian submarine in the region could be meant as a signal to the US.

Araral said that it could be the Russians telling the Americans: "If you threaten us, we can threaten you back."

He added that news that Russian submarines were operating in the South China Sea was not surprising, given that Russia has been stepping up its participation in war drills with its Pacific allies.

Sari Arho Havrén, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute specializing in China's foreign relations, went further.

She told BI that increased China-Russia cooperation is meant to make US regional allies and partners "increasingly anxious."

These actions also "demonstrate how China would not necessarily be alone should any crisis escalate," she added.

Russia conducted joint military drills with China in the South China Sea in July and September.

The Philippines' Armed Forces and the Philippine Navy didn't respond to requests for comment.

• The US Navy has developed a new way of reloading warships with missiles while at sea.
• It will be "critical" to any future conflict in the Pacific, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said.
• The solution could be useful, but it's untested in real war conditions, one analyst said.

The US Navy has developed a new way of reloading its destroyers, cruisers, and other sizable warships with missiles at sea, as it contends with the growing naval threat from China.

The Wall Street Journal gained exclusive access to a recent test off the coast of California, where US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro described the new capability as "critical to any future conflict in the Pacific."

The technology is based on repurposed 1990s prototype equipment and uses a hydraulically propelled system that transports missile canisters from a supply ship via a zipline to place them into a launch cell, it reported.

TRAM was tested on land in July and then at sea for the first time in October, off the coast of San Diego, where Del Toro touted it as a "powerful deterrent" to US rivals.

"Without the ability to rearm at sea, our service combatants must return to port, sometimes thousands of miles away," Del Toro said at the time.

This could put them out of action for weeks at a time.

Del Toro said the US Navy expected to start deploying TRAM within the next two to three years.

In a speech at Columbia University in December 2022, Del Toro said delivering the "game-changing" capability to rearm US warships at sea was one of his top priorities.

China has grown increasingly assertive in the Pacific in recent months, crossing into the airspace and waters around Taiwan, a key US partner, and carrying out maritime gray-zone operations in the South China Sea against the Philippines, an ally the US is treaty-bound to defend.

To date, the US has only been able to reload its warships' cruise missile launchers from solid ground, or in sheltered harbors.

In September, the USS Dewey reloaded at an allied naval base in Darwin, Australia.

But "if conflict were to erupt, or if something were to happen, being able to go to various different locations around the Indo-Pacific, it makes it much faster for us to reload," Nicholas Maruca, the commanding officer of the USS Dewey, told the Journal.

However, the technology alone might not be enough.

Nick Childs, a senior naval analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, noted in a recent military blog that the system has only been trialed in "fairly benign" sea conditions and that the Navy needs to distribute enough equipment, replenishment ships, and missiles around the fleet, and also modify warships to receive them.

"However they are accomplished," he said of reloading solutions, they "will be no silver bullet for navies."

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• Russia is considering deploying missiles in Asia if the US stations more systems there, a top official said.
• Sergei Ryabkov, a deputy foreign minister, said it was an option "discussed many times" by Russian leaders.
• The remark hints at a potential for Russia to enter the fray in a region fraught with US-China tensions.

Sergei Ryabkov, one of Russia's deputy foreign ministers, said on Monday that Moscow is considering deploying its short- to medium-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific.

Speaking to Russian state media, Ryabkov described the option as a potential response to reports that the US may deploy its own systems in the region.

"Of course, this is one of the options that has also been discussed many times," Ryabkov said, per the TASS state news agency.

He had been asked by a reporter if Russia might station its missiles in Asian countries, according to the agency.

"The appearance of corresponding American systems in any region of the world will predetermine our further steps, including in the sphere of organizing our military-technical response," he added, per TASS.

Ryabkov's remarks signal a potential for Russia to step into a region that's primarily been a hotbed for tensions between Washington and Beijing.

His comment comes as Japanese media outlet Kyodo News reported on Sunday that Washington and Tokyo are jointly drafting Taiwan contingency plans that would station US missile units in the Philippines and the Nansei Islands.

The latter is an island chain stretching from Japan's southwest coast to Taiwan, and temporary bases there would allow the US to establish a missile presence close to the self-governed island.

Citing unnamed Japanese sources, Kyodo News reported that in the event of a Taiwan crisis, the Japanese-American plan would send a US Marine Littoral Regiment to the Nansei Islands with its High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.

The 12th Marine Littoral Regiment is already based nearby in Okinawa, but Kyodo News did not cite any specific unit.

Meanwhile, the US Army would respond by deploying long-range units from its Multi-Domain Task Force to the Philippines, per Kyodo News.

The US has stationed a Mid-Range Capability "Typhon" system in the Philippines since April when it was first deployed for a joint military exercise with Manila. The ground-based system is one of Washington's newest and can fire both the Tomahawk cruise missile and the Standard Missile 6 interceptor.

In late September, the Associated Press reported that the US and the Philippines had agreed to keep the Typhon indefinitely in the archipelago.

The decision deeply angered China, which had for months demanded that the system be removed from the Philippines.

On early Monday morning Beijing time, Chinese state media agency Xinhua published Ryabkov's comments in a brief report.

All of this is openly happening in the shadow of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty's collapse.

The agreement, signed in 1987, was a pact between the Soviet Union and the US to ban nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

However, the treaty began to splinter two decades later as the US and its allies accused Russia of violating the agreement by building and deploying the Novator 9M729 cruise missile.

In 2019, the Trump administration announced the US's withdrawal from the treaty, saying Russia was no longer complying.

Moscow has, in response, repeatedly blamed the US for withdrawing from the agreement.