NATO has launched a new mission to increase surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after important undersea cables were damaged or cut last year.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry,” would include more patrol aircraft, warships and drones.
His announcement came during a summit in Helsinki attended by all NATO countries bordering the Baltic Sea, namely Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.
While Russia has not been directly identified as the culprit in the cable damage, Rutte said NATO would intensify its monitoring of Moscow's “shadow fleet” — ships that have no clear ownership and are used to transport banned oil products.
Tensions between NATO countries and Russia have escalated relentlessly since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“There is reason for serious concern” about damage to infrastructure, Rutte said. He added that NATO would respond to such incidents forcefully, by boarding more suspected ships and confiscating them if necessary.
He declined to reveal further details about the number of assets that would participate in the Baltic Sentry initiative, saying that this could change regularly and that he did not wish to make “the enemy any wiser than he already is.”
Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply, but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) of cables secure an estimated 10 trillion A dollar of money. Transactions every day.
In a post on X, he said NATO would do “whatever it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and everything we hold dear.”
There has been an uptick in unexplained damage to subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea in recent months.
Witness the latest accident involving undersea infrastructure Cutting the electricity cable between Finland and Estonia In late December.
A Finnish Coast Guard crew boarded the oil tanker Eagle S – which was sailing under a Cook Islands flag – and directed it into Finnish waters, while Estonia deployed a patrol ship to protect the undersea power cable.
On Monday, Risto Lohi of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters that the Eagle S was threatening to cut a second power cable and a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia at the time of its seizure.
Estonia's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in December that damage to submarine infrastructure had become “so frequent” that it cast doubt on the idea that damage could be considered “accidental” or “mere poor seamanship.”
Tsahakna did not directly accuse Russia. Neither did Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who said on Sunday that although Sweden does not jump to conclusions or “accuse someone of sabotage without very strong reasons,” it is also “not naive.”
“The security situation and the fact that strange things repeatedly happen in the Baltic Sea also lead us to believe that hostile intentions cannot be ruled out.”
“There is little evidence that a ship could collide by accident and without you noticing it… without understanding that it could cause damage,” he said.
