Russia’s use of this region means that the aggressor country is looking for opportunities to block or disconnect certain states from Europe. such a view 24 Channels YouControl expert Mykhailo Koltsov, external advisor to the World Bank, added that this could happen in case of military actions or sabotage.

“The use of civilian ships for such reconnaissance and Russia’s interest in this region in general shows that they understand that communications are of key importance for this region,” Mykhailo Koltsov said. said.

What is Russia trying to do?

From the strait in the north of Great Britain emerge huge, double-armored cables that transmit extremely important information. In fact, they are the basis of the internet and connect two continents by sea.

In the event of an attack, satellite internet has no power to compensate for the amount of internet passing through these cables. Therefore, they are an important part of the economy. Many processes in Europe and the Nordic countries depend on digital infrastructure.

Perhaps the Russians are not even looking at the stage of damaging or destroying this infrastructure, but at the stage of connecting to it, that is, conducting reconnaissance to understand where it is possible to connect, for example, to intercept traffic, which then can be the basis for cyberattacks or industrial espionage.
– said the YouControl expert.

So we can think Two options: first – Russia is testing the possibility of connecting to enter this system, and second – looking for critical points that will lead to the collapse of the entire system.

What to expect from other countries?

There are networks in the North Sea that connect Norway with Great Britain, Denmark with the USA. It is worth understanding what exactly these cables are for. In network communication there is such a thing as “delay”, that is, how many milliseconds it takes for a signal to get from point A to point B. Accordingly, the shorter the distance, the less delay.

For example, if this indicator exceeds a minute or even a few seconds, the system automatically denies access to certain services. All of this will affect economic processes and critical infrastructure in general.

From a cybersecurity perspective, downed cables or other attacks will have an impact because without external Internet the internal infrastructure will be effectively unprotected. For example, you cannot redirect traffic, which is a way to protect sites.

In fact, this means that the country’s internal digital infrastructure is different from the outside and cannot manage risks and balance this system. Therefore, you will be vulnerable to cyber risks,
Mykhailo Koltsov emphasized.

Earlier, Western publications, citing NATO sources, wrote that Russia could replace critical infrastructure in the North Sea. For this, non-military ships were used.