Russia has allegedly used up to 50 fishing vessels, cargo ships and yachts for covert espionage activities in the North Sea and Baltic waters over the past ten years, according to an investigation published in the Nordic media.
This is the main conclusion is drawn from the study prepared by the public broadcasting corporations of Norway (NRK), Denmark (DR), Sweden (SVT) and Finland (YLE) under the title ‘Shadows of War’ and which analyzes Russian naval operations in Nordic waters.
According to the report, Russian civilian vessels have sailed in the vicinity of offshore wind farms, over gas pipelines and Internet and power cabling laid on the seabed. We can’t do more than keep an eye on them,» the Swedish Navy said, according to SVT.
»This kind of movement and behavior (…). They could become a threat if the situation around the world deteriorates even more. Power and communication cables are, of course, important for a country,» said the Swedish Navy’s press officer, Jimmie Adamsson.
According to the study, Russia’s aim with such operations is to acquire sufficient information to enable Moscow to sabotage electricity distribution in northwest Europe in the future, according to YLE.
As Adamsson said, the key to Russia’s ability to carry out such maneuvers is the fact that state-owned vessels are not used, as they do require specific permits to enter each country’s territorial waters. Civilian vessels, such as merchant ships, can serve as «camouflage».
This information once again sows discord over what may have happened at the end of September last year, when a series of explosions in the Baltic Sea destroyed a section of the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline. While Moscow points the finger at foreign powers, the West has insisted on a self-sabotage maneuver.
According to DR’s notes, in November 2022 a suspicious vessel was sighted in Kattegat, between Denmark and Sweden, which, according to the official version, was conducting marine research but may actually have been in talks with a Russian naval base.
In fact, broadcasting corporations have noted that many of these suspicious Russian civilian vessels turn off their transmissions to avoid being identified and disappear from the radars of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish maritime authorities.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
