NATO's Baltic Sea allies band together to deter suspected sabotage of undersea cables
Military alliance announced 'Baltic Sentry' initiative amid security concerns
NATO and its eight Baltic Sea allies are stepping up their deterrence efforts in the wake of a series of incidents that have seen successive ruptures of key undersea conduits.
On Tuesday, the alliance announced the launch of Baltic Sentry — a new military activity involving drones, ships and patrol aircraft, that aims to boost efforts to protect critical infrastructure.
"We are determined to deter, detect and counter any attempts at sabotage," the leaders of NATO's eight Baltic Sea allies said in a joint statement.
"Any attack against our infrastructure will be met with a robust and determined response. We stand ready to attribute hostile actions committed by malignant actors, as appropriate."
The Baltic Sentry announcement came several weeks after Finnish authorities seized a tanker that is suspected of having dragged its anchor across the seabed and damaging a key power cable running between Estonia and Finland, along with four telecommunication cables.
Police have said nine crew members are suspects in a criminal investigation into the possible sabotage of the subsea cables.
Those events occurred weeks after two prior November incidents saw data cables on the Baltic seabed ruptured — one linking Finland and Germany, and another running from Lithuania to Sweden. Sabotage was suspected in both cases.
Pekka Toveri, a member of the European Parliament and a retired major-general of the Finnish Defence Forces, told Times Radio that it's important to remain vigilant in the face of these continuing threats.
"If we are careless and let it continue and grow, it might become … even more serious," he said in a recent interview.
When announcing the Baltic Sentry initiative, NATO's Baltic Sea allies stopped short of directly attributing responsibility for the spate of incidents affecting undersea infrastructure.
But they highlighted ongoing security risks in Russia's use of a so-called shadow fleet that has ferried Moscow's oil to markets abroad amid sanctions imposed by the West.
Finland's Customs Service believes the tanker seized in December is a part of this same shadow fleet.
Russia claims NATO leaning on 'myths'
Moscow, meanwhile, has pointed a finger at NATO for taking actions it claims are intended to impede the export of Russian oil.
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia's foreign ministry, recently accused NATO of using what she called "myths" to beef up the alliance's presence in the Baltic Sea.
"The real purpose of all this is to limit Russian oil exports by any means necessary … and to create the preconditions for the introduction of arbitrary restrictions on international shipping in the Baltic Sea," she told a news briefing Thursday.
Russia's relations with NATO and the West have deteriorated sharply in the wake of the all-out war that has raged in Ukraine for nearly three years following Russia's invasion in February 2022.
The war also prompted two of Russia's neighbours, Finland and Sweden to join the Western military alliance, much to the consternation of Moscow.
With files from The Associated Press and Reuters