NATO will create a new Baltic Sentinel mission to patrol key areas of the Baltic Sea, following a series of incidents involving the rupture of submarine cables in the region.
This was reported by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at a briefing in Helsinki (Finland) after the summit of leaders of the NATO Baltic countries.
The mission will include frigates and maritime patrol aircraft to increase vigilance in the Baltic Sea. However, the Secretary General did not specify when the mission would be launched or how long it would last.
According to Rutte, submarine cables provide more than 95% of internet traffic, and 1.3 million kilometers of cables ensure that financial transactions worth approximately $10 trillion take place every day.
He said that NATOʼs adversaries should know that the Alliance will not tolerate attacks on its critical infrastructure. That is why new technologies will be deployed in the Baltic Sea, including a small fleet of naval drones. NATO will also work with allies to integrate national surveillance capabilities.
What happened
On Christmas Day, on the afternoon of December 25, the “Estlink 2” submarine power cable between Finland and Estonia broke.
Two ships were passing overhead at the time of the incident. Finnish police suspect the “Eagle S”, a vessel en route from Russia to Egypt, was involved. It slowed down significantly when the cable broke. It is believed the cable broke due to an anchor the ship was dragging along the seabed.
The tanker “Eagle S” belongs to Russiaʼs shadow fleet. Spy equipment was found on it.
A lawyer representing the shipping company “Caravella”, which owns the “Eagle S”, insists that "this is a seizure" because he has not received a decision to detain and arrest the vessel in Finnish territorial waters.
Although law enforcement officials previously noted that the tanker is evidence in a criminal case.
It later emerged that the Eagle S crew had threatened to cut other cables and the gas pipeline.
What preceded
An undersea telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany, which runs alongside other important undersea infrastructure, including gas pipelines and power cables, was severed on November 18, 2024. A cable between Lithuania and Sweden was also reported to have been severed. Both incidents came just weeks after the United States detected increased Russian military activity around major undersea cables.
Germany immediately declared that these incidents were sabotage and a hybrid attack. The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, wrote that the crew of the Chinese bulk carrier “Yi Peng 3” is suspected of severing communication cables in the Baltic Sea.
Investigators believe the crew may have intentionally severed two important data cables while dragging the anchor along the bottom of the Baltic Sea for more than 160 kilometers.
The “Yi Peng 3” has a two-man crew: a Chinese captain and a Russian sailor. European investigations are now focused on whether the captain was recruited by Russian intelligence. Law enforcement officials say it is “extremely unlikely” that the captain did not see the dropped anchor, which slowed the ship for hours and tore cables in its path.
Swedish Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oscar Bolin said authorities had determined that the Chinese ship had also threatened to cut a power cable connecting the Baltic and Nordic countries.
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