Nato’s race to catch Baltic cable cutters red-handed

Summit on Tuesday to shore up maritime security as experts say allies have ‘no good options’

Finnish investigators suspect the tanker Eagle S is a part of Russia's "shadow fleet" and may have damaged a Baltic power cable on Christmas Day. AFP

Nato leaders will plot a fightback against Baltic Sea cable cutters at a summit in Finland early next week, with experts warning they must catch the saboteurs red-handed because they have "no good options" once the culprits have sailed away.

Eight Nato countries with a Baltic coastline will discuss "measures required" to secure their undersea connections at the special Helsinki summit on Tuesday. The talks will focus on bolstering Nato's Baltic presence and "responding to the threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet", the Finnish president's office said.

Ships described by Germany as "dilapidated tankers" used to dodge sanctions are suspected of dragging their anchors along the Baltic seabed to cut off power and internet. Finland announced on Friday that two Nato vessels would be deployed for surveillance.

Finnish detectives found an anchor in their search for a Christmas Day cable cutter as they carry out inquiries into a vessel called Eagle S with suspected ties to Moscow. But the damage to the Estlink power cable in waters patrolled by Finland's navy and border guard was only one of a spate of incidents in recent months.

"The Finns got lucky with Eagle S. They caught her in the act of causing the damage. But that is going to remain a rare case," Elisabeth Braw, an Atlantic Council expert on resilience against hybrid threats, told The National.

"In most cases the damage happens and you have to find the culprit afterwards, and the culprit may already have left the site. Unless the ship is sailing in your territorial waters and the damage is in territorial waters, you have very few options under international maritime rules to actually do anything about it."

Deter and deny

To curb attacks, Nato has already agreed to step up vigilance in the 400,000-square kilometre Baltic Sea, which is sailed by Russian tankers. The trail of damage has also led investigators to Chinese vessels such as a bulk carrier called Yi Peng 3, which was probed over two Baltic cable incidents in November.

Britain and Germany have also raised environmental fears, after a suspected "shadow fleet" tanker became stranded near a German holiday island on Friday. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned of the risk of oil spills in a call with Estonian leader Kristen Michal, his office said.

A UK-led coalition called the Joint Expeditionary Force is providing an AI-powered tool called Nordic Warden. Developed by US tech company Palantir and trialled during exercises in Latvia, it estimates the risk posed by each vessel when it enters a sensitive area, drawing partly on the ship's reported route.

Nordic Warden has been "in active use" since the Christmas Day incident in the Baltic, Palantir's UK boss Louis Mosley revealed. The secretive big data company rarely discloses the military applications of its software.

As well as ship movements, a second focus would likely be on carriers believed to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" which might be more likely to cause harm, said Ms Braw. The "dark" vessels linked to clandestine oil trading sometimes fail to ping their location to global trackers.

Monitoring the seas is one thing but boarding a suspicious vessel would run the risk of confrontation. The Eagle S was sailing in Finland's exclusive economic zone, an area outside its core territorial waters in which foreign vessels are generally free to navigate.

Sensitive waters

Beyond the Baltic, data cables run through sensitive waters in the Red Sea, where they were damaged during Houthi attacks last year, and the Strait of Taiwan, where a Hong Kong-owned ship is suspected of having cut a cable in early January. Taiwan said the ship sails under two names and hinted it could have been involved in past incidents in the Baltic.

It also seems "not impossible" that non-state actors could take control of a ship in order to sabotage cables, said Basil Germond, a professor of international security at Lancaster University. It remains a mystery who was responsible for the 2022 explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany.

"Malign actors have an advantage with hybrid warfare: the cost of deterrence and defence is higher than the cost of sabotaging," Prof Germond said. "To deter attacks, we need to cancel perpetrators’ ability to deny their involvement by collecting strong evidence on the spot.

"So, the best option is to catch perpetrators on the spot, which is called 'in flagrante delicto'. It is then easier to name and shame the perpetrator. The second best option is to react quickly to arrest the ship before it leaves the area. But then, international law requires you to obtain permission from the flag state to conduct inspections or interrogations."

The Kremlin says it is absurd to "blame Russia for everything without any reason", while China insists it "strictly fulfils its obligations under international law". Nato countries suspect the severed cables are part of a wider hostile campaign including cyber attacks, disinformation and illegal migration to the EU via Belarus.

Finland had mild weather to thank for avoiding Christmas Day power cuts, according to operators, who warned things might have been "tight" during a cold snap. Estonia said it was difficult to believe the spate of severed cables was "accidental or merely poor seamanship".

Cable construction

Companies laying cables can try to secure them by installing them deeper under the surface and fitting them with greater monitoring capabilities. Repairing cables can take months and a safety-in-numbers approach similar to how turtles lay eggs is one way to secure them.

"To improve resilience of the network it is crucial to design it in a redundant way. Indeed, if energy connectors and communication cables are redundant, disruptions will be limited in case of sabotage, albeit still costly to repair," Prof Germond said.

If the damage is done and a perpetrator gets away, it is hard to trace them and the law of the sea limits the right to board ships outside territorial waters. Any attempt to detain a vessel could lead to an escalation with Russia or China.

Nato countries could argue it was within their rights more generally to keep order in the Baltic, but Russia or China "could justifiably argue that we would be in the wrong" under the law of the sea, said Ms Braw. She has encouraged states and their citizens to come forward with ideas but has heard "no good options" so far.

"The only strategy is really to maintain increased surveillance and to respond together whenever the next attack occurs," she said. "In terms of stopping the attacks, it’s really not possible."

Part of the problem is that unlike Cold War-era pipelines, many internet cables were laid "during the good days of globalisation", she said. "The undersea infrastructure is all based on the premise that countries will get along.

"What we are seeing is this recognition that this is not just commercial infrastructure, it has geopolitical ramifications. It wasn’t a consideration at all 10 or 15 years ago, and now it’s a massive consideration."