Volkswacht Bodensee - 'Impossible' to protect all undersea infrastructure: NATO commander

Nations around the Baltic Sea are scrambling to bolster their defences after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months.

After several telecom and power cables were severed, experts and politicians accused Russia of orchestrating a hybrid war against the West as the two sides square off over Ukraine.

NATO this week announced it was launching a new monitoring mission in the Baltic Sea involving patrol ships and aircraft, aimed at deterring any attempts to target undersea infrastructure in the region.

Danish Navy Captain Niels Markussen, director of NATO's Maritime Centre for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure warned that it was not possible to stop every act of sabotage.

"You can't put a ship over every nautical mile of pipeline or cable -- it's an impossible task," Markussen told AFP.

"There are approximately 50,000 big ships out there worldwide and they can drop anchors and drag them over infrastructure."

Markussen said that while the Baltic mission would not be able to stop all incidents it "will bring much more focus on it, monitoring, and a better picture of what and who is operating out there."

"It will have a deterrence."

- 'Grave concern' -

Tensions have mounted around the Baltic Sea since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In October 2023, an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was shut down after it was damaged by the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship.

Two telecom cables in Swedish waters were severed on November 17-18 last year.

Just weeks later, on December 25, the Estlink 2 electricity cable and four telecom cables linking Finland and Estonia were damaged.

Investigators suspect the cables were damaged by the anchor of the Eagle S, a Cook Island-flagged oil tanker believed to be part of a so-called "shadow fleet" used to export Russian oil.

Investigations are ongoing into these incidents, but NATO says the spate of cases is a cause for "grave concern" and suspicions have pointed at Moscow.

Protecting underwater infrastructure has often been seen as the job of the private firms operating it, or individual countries.

But Markussen said NATO members were rapidly ramping up coordination and cooperation to try to protect their vital energy and communication links.

NATO countries are also increasingly turning to technology including artificial intelligence and underwater drones to try to tackle the threat, he said.

One first issue however has been to get a clear sense of where exactly NATO members' undersea infrastructure lies: countries and companies have often been reluctant to share the location of strategic assets.

"We need to understand the total system of our infrastructure -- what is out there and what it's doing," Markussen said.

G.Haefliger--VB