NATO has just launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.
The NATO chief, Mark Rutte had remarked that the mission, tagged “Baltic Sentry,” would involve more patrol aircraft, warships, and drones.
This announcement was made at a summit in Helsinki attended by all NATO countries perched on the Baltic Sea – Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden.
While Russia was not directly called out as a culprit in the cable damage, Rutte revealed that NATO would ramp up its monitoring of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” – ships without clear ownership that are used to transport embargoed oil products.
Ever since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, tensions between NATO countries and Russia have been mounting relentlessly
“There is reason for grave concern” over infrastructure damage, Rutte had said, adding that NATO would respond to such accidents more seriously, with more boarding of suspect vessels and, if necessary, their seizure.
He however, refused to share more details on the number of assets that will take part in the Baltic Sentry initiative, as he said this could change regularly and that he did not want to make “the enemy any wiser than he or she is already.”
Undersea infrastructure is important not only for electricity supply but also because over 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometers (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day.”
In a post on X, he remarked that NATO would do “what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear.”
There has been an increase in unexplained damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic in recent months.
The most recent accident to undersea infrastructure saw an electricity cable which runs between Finland and Estonia get cut in late December.
