NATO Sends Two Ships To Guard Baltic Sea Infrastructure From Russian ‘Hybrid Warfare’

NATO is strengthening its military presence in the Baltic Sea in response to the Christmas Day severing of the Estlink 2 electricity cable and four telecom cables linking Finland and Estonia.

A month prior to that incident, in November, two other submarine telecommunication cables, the BCS East-West Interlink and C-Lion1 fiber-optic cables, were damaged.

Soon after the alleged sabotage the West charged that a Russian ‘shadow ship’ intentionally dragged its anchor on the sea bed in order to damage the vital telecoms links. The vessel in Finnish custody is the Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S.

European media reported that as of days ago the initial cables which were damaged connecting Estonia and Finland have been repaired. However, another damaged cable, reportedly sabotaged later in December could yet to months more to be up and running.

“Estlink 2, the power cable damaged on December 25, has not yet been repaired, with work expected to take several months, according to Finnish operator Fingrid and Elering of Estonia,” DW reports.

On Friday Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen announced that the NATO military alliance is sending “two vessels and we are also increasing other activities and presence in the area.”

At the start of this week the the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force had announced it would be ramping up its surveillance of undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

“Finland has long been concerned about the risks to environmental and maritime safety posed by the shadow fleet used by Russia,” Valtonen said Friday. “It is clear that the shadow fleet is also a threat to critical underwater infrastructure.”

European authorities are still investigating the matter and questioning the crew. There have been reports that the anchor has been recovered from the bottom of the ocean floor.

The West has loudly condemned what it’s calling Russia’s ‘hybrid warfare’ targeting key infrastructure in European telecoms. However, officials also still speak in terms of ‘assumptions’…

Germany’s defense minister was quick to announce that “no one believes that these cables were cut accidentally,” hammering the point home by adding that “we have to assume … it is sabotage.”

The Kremlin has of course denied all of these allegations and has condemned what it calls a Russophobic witch hunt which blames any and all Western infrastructure failure on Moscow.

The seas of northern Europe have been closely watched ever since the biggest single sabotage event of the Ukraine war – the Nord Stream pipeline explosions. In the case of Nord Stream, the latest consensus is that it was not Russia… but either the CIA or Ukraine.