Sweden’s prosecution workplace mentioned it launched a probe into “sabotage” over harm to 2 undersea Baltic Sea cables, connecting Lithuania and Sweden and Finland and Germany.
“The offense is currently being investigated as sabotage. The preliminary investigation is ongoing and at an early stage. There is no further information to share about the investigation at this time,” prosecutor Henrik Soderman mentioned in a press release simply hours after neighboring Finland mentioned it had additionally opened a police investigation.
Drone surveillance
The conflict in Ukraine and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines pressured Germany to look elsewhere for vitality and it has constructed a sequence of fuel terminals on its coast.
Increased drone exercise across the new infrastructure nonetheless raised suspicions that the terminals have been being scouted “for the purposes of sabotage,” German officers mentioned.
According to German media reviews, the reconnaissance was carried out by unmanned Russian navy plane.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock mentioned in October that Moscow was utilizing “hybrid means” to focus on Germany, including: “We see many, many examples, time and again.”
Drones above industrial websites have been “not there to observe the beautiful local landscape, but because there is a chemical park there and a… storage facility for nuclear waste nearby,” she mentioned.
Naval encounters
Russian ships within the North and Baltic Seas have prompted rising concern for NATO international locations within the area.
Belgium launched an investigation in early 2023 after a Russian spy ship off its North Sea coast was suspected of surveying key vitality and communications hyperlinks.
In July 2024, Finland mentioned a Russian analysis vessel violated its territorial waters, shortly after it joined the NATO navy alliance.
Russian vessels have been systematically surveying crucial infrastructure, together with wind farms, pipelines, and cables within the North and Baltic Seas, in accordance with a report by German broadcasters NDR, WDR and newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“We consider the danger to be very real,” German intelligence chief Bruno Kahl instructed media.
Moscow was “accelerating its own preparations to be able to act militarily against the West”, Kahl mentioned.
GPS jamming
In April, Estonia and different Baltic states warned that widespread GPS jamming elevated the specter of an aviation accident.
The disturbance to location providers was blamed on Russian “hybrid activity” within the area, Estonia mentioned.
The disruption led Finnish service Finnair to droop flights to the Estonian metropolis of Tartu, close to the Russian border.
The airline’s pilots have observed a rise in interference since 2022, together with the airspace near Russia’s Kaliningrad area on the Baltic Sea.
Border hassle
Russia has additionally created alarm by beginning disputes over borders within the Baltic Sea.
Moscow printed a decision this yr that confirmed it deliberate to unilaterally change its maritime frontiers with Finland and Lithuania from 2025.
Russian border guards in May eliminated buoys from the Narva River which confirmed the border with Estonia, officers in Tallinn mentioned.
The disappearance of the markers was a part of a “broader pattern” by Moscow to make use of “tools related to the border to create fear and anxiety”, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas mentioned.
Source: www.dailysabah.com