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One billion people in Europe and North America are at risk due to numerous attempted attacks on Russia’s underwater infrastructure. According to The Guardian, Vice Admiral Didier Maleter,
One billion people in Europe and North America are at risk due to numerous attempted attacks on Russia’s underwater infrastructure. According to The Guardian, Vice Admiral Didier Maleter, Deputy Commander of NATO Naval Joint Command (Marcom), warned that these were wind power plants, pipelines and communication cables.
The threat of damage to communications between America, Europe and Asia has increased due to the events at the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 and the Balticconnector in October 2023 and the damage caused by the Houthis to cables in the Red Sea.
24 Channels It describes what is known about the threat to underwater communications and how NATO protects against it.
Vice Admiral Maleter claims that the network of undersea cables and pipelines supplying electricity and communications to Europe was not designed for hybrid warfare waged by Russia and other NATO adversaries.
Submarine cables in the Euro-Atlantic region / Geostrategy Council infographic
We know that Russia organizes many underwater operations. Their aim was to influence the European economy. All of our critical underwater facilities are under threat. It should be clearly explained: we know about Russian developments in the field of implementation of nuclear submarines. But we are one and we work together
– noted Marcom’s deputy commander.
Maleter himself is a submariner and, according to him, spent “more than 1,000 days underwater.” According to him, the vulnerability of existing infrastructure is increasing because it was initially developed by private companies.
Photo: Helio Dilolwa/Unsplash
According to Vice Admiral Maleter, Marcom has more than 100 ships, nuclear submarines and conventional submarines patrolling the Arctic, Black Sea, Atlantic, Baltic and Mediterranean waters.
This is a security issue for almost a billion civilians of NATO countries.
– adds the vice admiral.
Maleter also emphasized that even NATO’s significant presence in the water region does not make it possible to secure every element of infrastructure: “The main responsibility for protecting their own infrastructure lies with states.”
Photo: Nicholas Doherty/Unsplash
Now we pay special attention to the Russians and it is very difficult, not possible, to constantly monitor every cable. Many countries such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark have already developed drones, sensors, underwater drones to detect suspicious activities very quickly.
– Marcom’s deputy commander explained.
Both cases of communications damage in the north of Europe (Baltic connector and Nord Stream) remain unresolved.
At the same time, Finland said that in the autumn of 2023 everything showed that the Chinese ship deliberately damaged the Baltic connection with its anchor.
It is a two-way gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, connecting the gas networks of the two Baltic countries. It was released on January 1, 2020. It passes between Inkoo in Finland and Paldiski in Estonia. A telecommunications cable is located next to the gas stove.
Baltic connector on the map / BNN.NETWORK
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) found that the Balticconnector gas pipeline and telecommunications cable between Finland and Estonia may have been damaged by the anchor of the Chinese container ship NewNew Polar Bear.
Sweden also said an underwater line connecting Stockholm and Tallinn was damaged around the same time as two others. At the same time, investigators did not conclude that this was a terrorist attack or accidental damage. However, in December, Finland’s European affairs minister Anders Adlerkreutz said that the communications damage was not accidental, Politico reported.
During the criminal investigation, the police found that the movement of the ship NewNew Polar Bear under the Hong Kong flag coincided with the time and place of damage to the gas pipeline.
– said NBI’s message written by Reuters.
Following the NBI’s statement, Estonian investigators, who also investigated cases where the telecommunications cable was damaged, said that Russia’s trace was found. This is the ship “Sevmorput”, which was simultaneously in the incident area. Additionally, Finnish investigators later found a “heavy object” on the seabed near the pipeline and learned that the cause of the damage was not an explosion.
Finland then contacted China and Russia through diplomatic channels. The result was expected; Russia’s Rosatom told Reuters that the ship Sevmorput had nothing to do with the damage to the pipeline. The Russians claimed that the ship did not stop or slow down in the Gulf of Finland, and the crew did not record any suspicious circumstances.
Although Russia has never been a strong naval power, it has one of the largest submarine fleets in the world, writes the expert British publication Council Geostrategy. Its composition is as follows:
The aggressor still has ambitious plans to further modernize its submarine fleet, but the Geostrategy Council remains skeptical of Russia’s ambitions, citing both funding constraints and problems with acquiring technology. The reason is sanctions and export control.
Attacks on underwater infrastructure are cited by Geostrategy Council analysts as one of the threats posed by Russia’s increased underwater activities.
The story of the Houthis in the Red Sea vividly demonstrates how damaging underwater communications can be. Yemeni militias, Iran’s proxy force, declared war on Israel in late 2023 and began blockading the Red Sea.
A naval blockade alone was not enough for them. In early March, militants damaged four underwater cables connecting Europe and Asia. After that, a large-scale failure occurred in the company Meta – users lost access to their own accounts in social networks.
The previous day, Yemen’s internationally recognized government had warned that the Houthis were planning to attack ships at sea as well as damage submarine cables. At the same time, the Houthis’ Ministry of Telecommunications denied the accusations, saying the rebels had not touched communications cables.
According to the BBC, Hong Kong-based telecommunications company HGC Global Communications said the damage affected 25 percent of data traffic between Asia and Europe in total.
According to HGC Global Communications, the Houthis cut four underwater cables in the Red Sea: Seacom, TGN-Gulf, Asia-Africa-Europe 1 and Europe India Gateway.
In total, 80% of westbound traffic from Asia passed through submarine cables. To mitigate the impacts, the company rerouted data via cables in mainland China to Europe, under the Pacific Ocean to the United States, and through other cables across the Red Sea.
Source: 24 Tv
John Wilkes is a seasoned journalist and author at Div Bracket. He specializes in covering trending news across a wide range of topics, from politics to entertainment and everything in between.
