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Nato is to deploy naval drones, submarines, ships and aircraft to help detect and prevent sabotage attempts against critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, after a number of power pipelines and data cables were damaged in recent months.
Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary-general, on Tuesday announced a new mission called Baltic Sentry after Finland last month seized a vessel belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers that damaged undersea electricity cables.
“It is all about protecting the critical undersea infrastructure,” Rutte said after meeting officials from the Baltic Sea region in Helsinki. “Where in the past we would discuss cyber attacks and sabotage and energy blackmail as being a separate set of actions, what we want to show today is that as Nato with our allies we will make sure that our deterrence is in the right place.”
Three ships have damaged underwater cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea in the past 15 months, all by dragging their anchors along the seabed, leading individual countries including Sweden and Estonia to step up their own naval patrols.
Nato’s new deployment is the latest in a series of actions to bolster the eastern flank of the military alliance following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and subsequent acts of sabotage against multiple countries. Multinational groups of troops are already based in each of the three Baltic states and are being reinforced. Nato has also long provided an air policing mission over the region.
Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, told the Financial Times in a recent interview that there was “close to zero” chance of all three ships accidentally damaging the underwater infrastructure.
Polish state broadcaster TVP on Tuesday said a Russian shadow fleet ship had been seen circling around a gas pipeline linking Norway to Poland, though no damage had been reported.
Rutte and other leaders have hailed Finland’s response to the latest act of suspected sabotage after it used a helicopter last month to board and seize the Eagle S, a Cook Islands-registered tanker that was transporting oil from Russia to Egypt at the time.
A group of legal experts from Baltic Sea states has been set up to explore ways under international maritime law to limit the freedom of navigation of vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, according to Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president, who hosted the Nato meeting in Helsinki.
Baltic Sea countries have sounded the alarm not just about the possibility of sabotage from such ships but also of environmental catastrophe owing to the decrepit state of many of the shadow fleet vessels. Finnish authorities found dozens of faults with the Eagle S, which has been impounded by the country.
Valtonen said it was “difficult to completely block the shadow fleet from the Baltic Sea” as Nato members were limited by international maritime law. But she added that there were possibilities for “the defence of territorial integrity or sovereignty”. Stubb also mentioned a Finnish law that allowed for emergency action when an environmental catastrophe was feared.
Rutte declined to give details of how many ships, aeroplanes, submarines and drones would be used, saying it could change over time. Sweden said at the weekend that it would provide up to three warships.
“What matters is that we employ the right military assets in the right places at the right time to deter future destabilising acts,” Rutte said.
