With its mighty camera, the surveillance aircraft of the French Navy, which sucked through the Baltic Sea, zoomed on on a cargo ship that plowed the water underneath.
The long-distance Atlantique 2-aircraft on a new mission for NATO Then the high-tech view shifted to another goal and then another, until after more than five hours on the patrol, the aircraft sensor’s proportion of the aircraft had exhausted most of the Baltic Sea in the west to Estonia in the northeast , borders on Russia.
The mere presence of the flight in heaven over the strategic sea last week, combined with military ships that patrol on the water, have also sent an unmistakable message: NATO alliance sets its guard against alleged attempts to sabotage underwater energy And data cables and pipelines that sabotage these pipelines sabotage crosscross the Baltic, triggered by a growing catalog of incidents that have damaged them.
“We will do everything in our power to ensure that we defend ourselves, that we can see what happens and then take the next steps to ensure that it does not happen again. And our opponents should know this, ”said Mark Rutte, General Secretary of NATO, this month, when he announced a new alliance mission with the name“ Baltic Sentry ”to protect the underwater infrastructure that is for the economic well-being of the Baltic Region nations is of crucial importance.
Electricity and communication cables and gas pipelines sew the nine countries with shores on the Baltic Sea, a relatively flat and almost redesigned sea. Some examples are the 152-kilometer balticConnector pipeline, which carries gas between Finland and Estonia, the high-voltage betting cable that connects the power grids of Sweden and Germany, and the 1,173 kilometer-C-Lion-telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany.
Why are cables important?
Underwater pipes and cables help the electricity management, keep houses warm and combine billions of people. More than 1.3 million kilometers of fiber-optical cable more than enough to extend to the moon and back to the loud of telegeography, which pursues and arranges the vital communication networks. The cables are usually the width of a garden hose. But 97 percent of global communication, including trillion dollar financial transactions, go through every day.
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“In the past two months alone, we have seen damage to a cable, Lithuania and Sweden, another connection from Germany and Finland, and finally a number of cables that combine Estonia and Finland. The investigations of all of these cases have not yet been completed. But there is reason for serious concern, ”said Rutte on January 14th.
Since October 2023, at least 11 Baltic cables have been damaged and the youngest is a fiber-optical cable that connects the Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland, which was broken on Sunday. Although cable operators determine that the damage to underwater cables is common, the frequency and concentration of incidents increased in the Baltic suspicion that damage may have been on purpose.
There are also fears that Russia as part of a wider campaign could appeal to so -called “hybrid war management” in order to destabilize the European nations to defend Ukraine against the full invasion that Moscow has been pursuing since 2022.
Rutte said without expressly fault on Russia: “Hybrid means sabotage. Hybrid means cyber attacks. Hybrid sometimes even means assassination attacks, attempts and in this case that we can hit our critical underwater infrastructure. “
The Finnish police suspect that the Eagle S, an oil tanker, the Estlink 2-network cable and two other communication cables, Finland and Estonia on December 25, 2024 combine Russian oil exports.
The Finnish authorities confiscated the tanker shortly after he had left a Russian port, and apparently cut the cables by dragging his anchor. Finnish investigators claim that the ship had left an anchor path almost 100 kilometers long on the sea floor.
Doubts of the secret services
Several western secret service officials who spoke about the sensitive nature of their work on the condition of anonymity, the Associated Press said that the recent damage was most likely randomly, apparently caused that anchors were drawn by ships that were poorly maintained and badly visited .
A high -ranking intelligence officer informed the AP that ships of ships and mechanical failures with the anchors of the ships were “several information” and indicate the Russian sabotage. The official said that Russian cables were also separated. Another western civil servant, who also spoke anonymously about intelligence agencies, said that Russia had sent a secret service to the place of a cable break to examine the damage.
The Washington Post reported for the first time about the aspiring consensus among the US and European security services that Maritime accidents probably caused the latest damage.
Cable operators advise caution
The European Subsea Cables Association, which represents cable owners and operators, found in November 2024 after errors were reported via two Baltic connections that are damaged every three days somewhere in the world. In Northern European waters, the main causes for damage are commercial fishing or ship anchors.
In the fiber-optical cable break on Sunday, the Latvia and Swedes connected, the Swedish authorities recorded a ship with a load of fertilizer to South America.
Navibulgar, a Bulgarian company that belongs to the Vezhen, said that every damage was unintentional and that the ship crew discovered when navigating in extremely bad weather that the left anchor seemed to pull on the sea floor.
The “Baltic Sentry” mission of NATO
Allianz uses warships, maritime patrol aircraft and marine drones to provide “improved surveillance and deterrent”.
On board the surveillance flight of the French Navy, the 14-member occupation ships, which they discovered from the air, discovered against the lists of the ships after which they were observed.
“When we experience some suspicious activities of ships at sea – for example, ships at a very low speed or in front of anchorage in a position that you shouldn’t be – we can see at that time,” said the flight commander. Lt. Alban, whose last name was held back by the French military for security reasons.
“We can look very accurate with our sensors to see what happens.”
Burrow reported from London. AP journalists Jill Lawless in London, David Klepper in Washington and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this report.
