On Christmas morning, Estonia’s electricity operators announced that the Estlink 2 power cord joining the country with Finland had been shut down.

The interruption left only the cable operation Estlink 1reducing the flow of electricity to Estonia almost two -thirds.

The incident had a slight impact due to reserve. However, it triggered fears that energy prices would increase as the cable was offline – possibly for months.

The next day, Finnish officials arrested the Eagle S, a tanker with the flag of Kuk, who said it was transporting oil from Russia to Turkey. He had passed over the cable, apparently dragging his anchor, Finnish officials said.

Like Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur, he hastened to point out in an interview with CNN in Tallinn last week, was not the first such suspected “hybrid attack” in recent months, which was done in the same obvious way. He admitted, however, that some believe that the incident was accidental. But it was the most important.

NATO, already watching similar incidents, replied. Within three weeks, the alliance had set a coordinated group of warships specifically to prevent such suspicious attacks.

Announcing the new surveillance and deterrence mission, named Baltic Sentry, NATO Secretary -General Mark Rutte said he had “serious concern” about a “increasing threat to our critical underwater infrastructure”.

Russia denied any involvement, but Pevkur accused Russia’s ships bypassing sanctions, the so -called “shadow fleet” of old tanks.
“We take it as it is, and we know that these ships are a threat, not only in terms of security, but first and foremost for environmental reasons.” said Pevkur.

Many share his claim.

The Swedish prosecutor’s office confirmed Sunday that it had occupied a ship suspected that it was carrying out sabotage after suspicious damage to a communication cable passing under the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Latvia.

The Russian involvement

Last week, in the Dutch frigate HNLMS TROMP – the flagship of the Baltic Sentry – the mission commander told CNN that he had already drafted a plan of maritime activity in the Baltic that questioning Russia’s allegations.

“Many of the ships we found act strange come from a Russian port or (go) to a Russian port,” said Commodore Arjen S. Warnaar, who leads Standing Nato Maritime Group One.

He said the anchors of the ships had in some cases dragged “a few hundred miles”, adding “rather deliberate” energy, rejecting the claims that the crews had not noticed anything.

The Finnish authorities have not yet announced the findings of their investigation to fail the operation of Estlink 2.

Finnish lawyer Herman Ljungberg, who represents the owner of Eagle S, based in the United Arab Emirates, Caravella LLC FZ, told CNN that he believes the ship was carrying Russian oil but said it was “fully legal load … sold below The applicable maximum price limit ‘. He described the allegation of sabotage “nonsense” and said the Finnish police had been conducting a four -week investigation without notifying any finding to indicate sabotage. He also said that the supposed damage to the ship in submarine equipment occurred outside Finland’s territorial waters and that Helsinki had no jurisdiction to intervene.

Russia, for its part, denied allegations of involvement in the destruction of the cable. The Russian Embassy in London last week said NATO is reinforcing naval and air forces under the “fictitious pretext of the” Russian threat “.

The global impact

Under the Baltic Sea, there are dozens of vulnerable cables of internet and electricity, which are mostly unprotected in the seabed.

According to Rutte, more than 95% of internet flow worldwide is transported through underwater cables, with about 1.3 million kilometers of such wiring to secure about $ 10 trillion of international trade daily.

Repairs can be expensive and damage may take months to correct. A coordinated attack could paralyze the communications networks of many countries, jeopardizing surgery in hospitals, police operations and much more.

Even short holidays could prevent access to tens of thousands to their favorite shows and films and influence online markets and home deliveries.

In a life dependent on the internet, the anchor of a ship dragging hundreds of miles away can affect the lives of many.

Just last week, according to the UK Defense Ministry, the British Navy was forced to accompany a Russian spy ship through the Straits of the Channel, “weeks after he was arrested to wander into critical submarine infrastructure”.

Just a day earlier, the United Kingdom had announced that it was sending sea aircraft to take part in Baltic Sentry, along with ships sent by Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

France also has a ship to locate the mines in the group, the CMT Croix du Sud.

Earlier this month, French Minister of Armed Forces, Sebastien Lekornou, denounced the “aggressive Russian energy” after a French maritime patrol aircraft was “locked” by the fire control radar of a Russian S400 air defense system and suffered GPS. Air space as part of the Baltic Sentry team. GPS involvement is nothing new – for months it has been an obstacle to landing political aircraft in the area.

Artificial intelligence helps to create ‘life standards’

Baltic Sentry is supported by artificial intelligence. “Speed ​​is the most important here. We have to react very quickly, “Niels Markussen captain Niels Markussen told CNN last week.

According to Markussen, a Danish Captain, the team builds “life patterns” in the Baltic, watching ships that often change direction, wandered or slow down near critical cables. “We have this image of underwater infrastructure, we compare it to the surface of the surface,” he explained.

With the combined warship resources, artificial intelligence, high-tech monitoring data and F-35 Stealth aircraft, Markussen says that the reaction time to a suspicious behavior will be “in half an hour or one hour”.

It’s not so simple to blame Russia, he says. “The performance is difficult,” he explains, adding that “proof, the weapon … is very, very difficult.”

Searches with sea drones

In the sea, off the coast, the crew of the German Mine FGS Datteln is located on the edge of the Baltic Sentry.

Perhaps more than any of the crews and ships to the Baltic Sentry, they move from the old war methods of battle to a hybrid war. The minefield has passed through the fight against marine mines to detect damage to underwater cables.

A few meters above the icy water, on an open deck on the back of the aging fighter aircraft, a shelf with drones is stacked. Each is about 8 feet (2.4 meters) in length, powered by four thin promoters and requires three sailors to handle it over the water before throwing it into the sea.

Tied on the ship with a thin orange cable, wrapped in a crank drum, the images are transmitted by the cloudy bottom of the ocean.

What drone handlers see under water, long before the repair workshops are called to correct a damaged cable could be the trigger that leads from diplomacy to action.

If indisputable data on Russian involvement are found, NATO will have taken another step closer to dealing with its opponent.