NEWS: British Royal Navy warship strikes Russian nuclear submarine during clash in the Atlantic.

The Russ­ian hunter-killer alleged­ly struck a sonar line towed by HMS Northum­ber­land, The Sun reported.

It would be the first col­li­sion between the Roy­al Navy and Russ­ian ships since the Cold War, which end­ed in 1989.

The British war­ship was in search of the Russ­ian sub­ma­rine, about 200 miles north of Scotland.

In order to lis­ten to the sounds of the sub­ma­rine, the British ship took out its towed sonar, which is a cable cov­ered with hydrophones.

How­ev­er, the crew were report­ed­ly forced to aban­don their mis­sion and return to port for repairs.

For­mer Com­man­der Tom Sharpe said: “The ques­tion is whether this was a delib­er­ate act or an accident.

“Detect­ing ships and sub­marines is not an exact sci­ence. It could have been a tight pass gone bad.

A Navy source report­ed­ly said they believed it was a “ran­dom mil­lion-for-one event.”

“The crew of the sub­ma­rine would have screwed each oth­er,” he said.

“They would have heard a very sud­den and unex­pect­ed noise like a fork being dragged over a cheese grater.”