NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is willing to increase the military presence of the Atlantic Alliance in the Baltic Sea, as announced a day after Finland detained a ship linked to Russia in its waters. In parallel, the Estonian Armed Forces launched a naval operation this Friday morning to protect one of the two electrical cables that connect the Baltic country with Finland, after the other was damaged after the passage of the Eagle S, the tanker of the Russian clandestine fleet that was boarded by Finnish agents.
The decision was made after Rutte spoke, this Friday, with the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, about the “possible sabotage” of the submarine cables, an issue that he also discussed the day before with the Estonian prime minister, Kristen Michal, to whom he already assured NATO’s willingness to provide “more support” to the region if necessary.
“I spoke to Stubb about the Finnish-led investigation into possible sabotage of undersea cables. I expressed my total solidarity and support. “NATO will increase its military presence in the Baltic Sea,” Rutte said in a message on social media. At a press conference, Stubb confirmed the information, which he revealed is the result of a lawsuit from the affected countries. “We have agreed with Estonia, and we have communicated this to Secretary General Mark Rutte, that we wish to have a stronger NATO presence,” the Finn said. “It’s still too early to draw conclusions about why this happened, but we know who did it,” Stubb added. At the same time, he stressed that Finland has the capacity to respond to these types of situations, investigate them and learn from them, so “there is nothing to worry about.” “Our message is very clear: we have the situation under control and we must continue to collaborate, vigilant to ensure that our critical infrastructure is not damaged,” he emphasized.
Finnish police and border guards boarded the Eagle San oil tanker suspected of having damaged, with its anchor, an underwater electricity cable and four other fiber optic cables for data transmission that connect Finland with Estonia and Germany and which stopped working around noon on Wednesday. Although the ship is registered in the Cooks Islands, Finnish authorities consider it to be part of the Kremlin’s attempt to avoid Western sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine. The incident of Eagle Swhich remains anchored off the coast and escorted by a Finnish patrol vessel, joins other recent ones in the Baltic that have been described by senior European officials as acts of sabotage and framed in Russia’s war with the West in northern Europe.
In fact, the European Commission has made it clear that it sees the Kremlin’s hand behind this new incident. “The suspicious ship is part of the Russian ghost fleet that threatens security and the environment, at the same time that it serves Russia to finance its war budget,” the Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Policy said in a joint statement. , Kaja Kallas, who announced that Brussels is now preparing to propose “more measures, including sanctions, against this fleet.” Approved this month, the Estonian added in her X account, “it provides effective tools to confront hybrid threats.” For her part, the new vice president of the Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, the Finnish Henna Virkunnen, recalled that the EU “is investing more than 500 million euros in new cables” and announced her intention to present “soon” a initiative to “reinforce the safety of cables and their repair.”
The matter will also, foreseeably, be addressed sooner rather than later, at the level of leaders of the Twenty-Seven. “I will work to strengthen the EU’s common response and its preparation, including tackling Russia’s clandestine fleet,” said the President of the European Council, António Costa, in X. The Portuguese, who is also “in contact” with Michal and with the Finnish Prime Minister, Petteri Orpo, has also strongly condemned “any deliberate destruction of Europe’s critical infrastructure.”
At the moment, the Atlantic Alliance has not given more details about the future increase in forces in the Baltic. But the issue of acts of sabotage against strategic infrastructure of member countries, especially the alleged attacks on submarine cables that have multiplied in recent years—especially since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine—has been a constant concern. of the member states. The issue, as well as the hybrid attacks behind which Moscow is suspected, was addressed in , at the beginning of the month.
“As soon as we know who is behind it, we announce it,” said Rutte during the meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels. As he recalled, NATO has already established several systems within the Alliance “to ensure that we can protect those cable systems.”
While waiting for NATO reinforcements, Estonia sent a naval patrol ship this Friday morning to protect the Estlink-1 submarine electrical cable, after the other electrical cable that connects the Baltic country with Finland, the Estlink- 2, was broken during the Christmas Day incidents. In a morning radio program, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur stressed that the patrol vessel Raju Its mission will be to deter any potentially harmful activity by ships passing through the Gulf of Finland. “The main thing is deterrence, that is, the ships that are operating there know that they are under your surveillance all the time, and if at any time we detect that someone wants to drop anchor somewhere in the water or we see that something suspicious is happening , then we can react,” Pevkur said.
The Minister of Defense added that an agreement had already been reached with Finland to jointly guarantee the security of Estlink-1 and the rest of the submarine cables between both countries. “For us, speed is crucial, a solution could be, for example, the deployment of Swedish forces here. Or it could be Germany, Poland or any other country. Through bilateral relations, we can find solutions faster than waiting for NATO as a whole,” Pevkur said.
