Nato has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.
Nato chief Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and drones.
His 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 singled out as a culprit in the cable damage, Rutte said Nato would step up its monitoring of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” – ships without clear ownership that are used to carry embargoed oil products.
Tensions between Nato countries and Russia have been mounting relentlessly since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“There is reason for grave concern” over infrastructure damage, Rutte said. He added that Nato would respond to such accidents robustly, with more boarding of suspect vessels and, if necessary, their seizure.
He declined 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 wish to make “the enemy any wiser than he or she is already”.
Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, Rutte said, adding that “1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day”.
In a post on X, he said Nato would do “what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear”.
Credit: bbc.com
