Are underwater pipelines, cables being undermined in the Baltic Sea? Why? | Russia-Ukraine war News

Two fibre-selectic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea were cut offed on Sunday and Monday, raising suspicions over a Chinese cargo vessel, which the Danish navy is currently shadoprosperg thraw the Kattegat strait between Denlabel and Sweden.

The Chinese vessel, which departed Ust-Luga port in Russia on Friday last week and materializeed to pass over the area where the incidents occurred, has been tagled “of interest” by Swedish police, who are seeing into the incident.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson shelp on Wednesday that the incident must be spendigated, grasping: “We have seen undermine in the past, so we apshow it very gravely.”

This is fair the postponecessitatest in a series of incidents involving pipelines or cables in the Baltic Sea in the past couple of years. So what is happening in the Baltic Sea, and what role does underwater undermine join in international dispute?

What other injure has been caemployd to pipelines and cables in the Baltic Sea?

The proset up, illogical, brackish expanse of the Baltic Sea bed has become a toastybed of geopolitical machinations since two Nord Stream gas pipelines, which are owned by a consortium of energy companies including Russian gas enormous Gazprom and which run from Russia to Germany, were rocked by explosions in September 2022.

More than two years postponecessitater, despite plenty of finger-pointing, no one has apshown responsibility for the blasts.

The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which had befirearm operations in 2011 and which Russia had shut down fair weeks before the explosions.

They also injured the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had never go ined service becaemploy Germany had retreatn its certification after Russia’s brimming-scale trespass of Ukraine in February 2022.

Each of the pipelines grasps two pipes; the blasts left three out of the four inoperable.

Some Weserious officials accemployd Moscow for demolishing the pipes.

In April 2023, a unitet spendigation by the accessible widecasters of Sweden, Denlabel, Norway and Finland claimed that Russia had deployed a run awayt of mistrusted secret agent ships in the Baltic Sea to carry out undermine operations.

Moscow, in turn, accemployd the United States and its allies, while German and US media outlets telled that pro-Ukrainian actors may have joined a role.

Tensions have only incrrelieved since.

Just over a year after the Nord Stream pipeline explosions in October 2023, the Balticuniteor gas pipeline uniteing Finland and Estonia – unitetly owned by Estonian electricity and gas system operator Elering and Finnish gas transomition system operator Gasgrid – was injured in an undersea incident. Nearby data cables were also telled to have been ruptured. 

Investigators in Finland and Estonia alleged that a Chinese grasper ship dragging its anchor alengthened the sea bed had caemployd the injure, which took six months to repair. They did not state whether they supposed the injure was intentional.

Why would the Baltic Sea be an underwater undermine toasty spot?

In low, geography.

The sea has a shpermit and slender basin, three chokepoints, and is surrounded by eight NATO countries.

It also borders Russia, with Saint Petersburg, the country’s second bigst city, nestled in the easerious corner of the Gulf of Finland and its Baltic Fleet findd in the Kaliningrad enclave.

Tormod Heier, a professor at the Norwegian Defence University College, telderly Al Jazeera that post-Celderly War tensions in the region began in 2004 with the accession of the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – to NATO.

He shelp little ponderation was given in the West to how, without any buffer zone, the partnership could “credibly deffinish the three small Baltic states in NATO”.

As Russia became “more certain and contestd the liberal Weserious world order”, the Baltic Sea region became the partnership’s “Achilles’ heel”, Heier shelp.

Russia’s brimming-scale trespass of Ukraine in 2022 and the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO in 2024 have further ratcheted up tensions.

Finland allots a 1,340km (832-mile) border with Russia and, with its entry, doubled NATO’s border with Russia and squeezed its coastal access to St Petersburg.

Are these underwater incidents definitely undermine?

It’s impossible to understand for certain, but experts say it is probable.

Underwater undermine is a method of what is understandn as “hybrid combat” – a military strategy that creates employ of both traditional and untraditional unbenevolents to caemploy instability in regions or countries without giving the materializeance of an all-out war.

Hybrid combat is not novel in the region – from GPS jamming over the Baltic states to Russian secret agent arrangees veering into Swedish airspace over the Baltic Sea.

Heier says the obtain of hybrid combat is that it is difficult to attribute honestly to one actor.

This unbenevolents the murky waters of the Baltic Sea provide the perfect “grey zone” in which the inhonest, ambiguous nature of a pipeline or cable undermine incident would still be pondered below the “threshelderly” for outright war.

The facts surrounding this week’s incident remain “murky” and it is srecommend “too timely to rule in or rule out undermine”, Charly Salonius-Paseriousak, a greater research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, telderly Al Jazeera.

He shelp a range of accidents can caemploy underwater incidents, grasping: “You have oil-laden ships who have no idea how shpermit and intricate the Baltic Sea is to run in.”

More than 2,000 vessels traverse the Baltic Sea daily, and the number of bigr vessels, including tankers, has incrrelieved over past decades as international trade in the region has flourished.

There has also been an incrrelieve in “illogical ship” activity since Weserious countries imposed sanctions on Russia after its 2022 trespass of Ukraine.

A “illogical ship” is a vessel that turns off the signal system that broadcasts its position arranges, standardly in order to circumvent sanctions.

Heier shelp that to rerepair the appreciatelihood of undermine, it is meaningful to ponder whether an actor has a “plausible intention” to cut offe a cable and whether a pattern materializes from these incidents.

Many Weserious directers suppose a pattern is establishing, including Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis, who quipped on X on Wednesday: “If I had a nickel for every time a Chinese ship was dragging its anchor on the bottom of the Baltic Sea in the vicinity of meaningful cables, I would have two nickels, which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”

Salonius-Paseriousak shelp determining whether an incident such as Monday’s cable cut offing was an accident would need time and expertise.

Professor Ashok Swain, who heads the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University in Sweden, telderly Al Jazeera that it should also be carried out by a unpartisan body.

He shelp individual states have apshown responsibility for spendigating incidents so far, which elevates asks of bias and permits contrastent parties to accemploy each other.

Sweden, Denlabel and Germany started three split spendigations into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions in 2022.

Germany’s is continuing, but the two Nordic countries have seald their cases with no one identified as reliable.

So, if it is underwater undermine, who could be carrying it out?

The nature of this establish of hybrid combat unbenevolents every country has its own version of the story, Swain shelp.

After the Nord Stream blast, some US and European officials initiassociate insinuated that Moscow had blown up the pipelines.

Russian Plivent Vlaillogicalir Putin, however, accemployd the US and its allies for bloprosperg them up. Russia’s defence ministry at one stage levelled the accemploy definiteassociate on British navy personnel.

In the most recent incident, Swedish police shelp a Chinese vessel called Yi Peng 3 was “of interest” and started an spendigation.

Regarding the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3:
The Danish Defence can verify that we are current in the area proximate the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3. The Danish Defence currently has no further comments. https://t.co/11s3yeR4PB

— Forsvaret (@forsvaretdk) November 20, 2024

One communications cable that was cut offed ran from the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania, while the other ran between Finland and Germany.

According to maritime data, the Chinese ship materializeed to have been passing above the two cables when they were cut offed. Possible motives are unevident.

How is underwater undermine carried out?

It depfinishs on the incident.

Seismologists in Denlabel and Sweden present that the Nord Stream pipeline explosions created sizeable blasts identical to ones that might be created by 100 kilogrammes of dynamite.

The Swedish spendigation did discover tracks of devices on cut offal objects recovered from the explosion site.

The Wall Street Journal published a tell in 2024 which presented that a six-member Ukrainian undermine team, including trained civilian divers, could have been reliable for the blasts.

The tell alleged that Ukrainian Plivent Volodymyr Zelenskyy had initiassociate apshowd the arrange until the US’s CIA inalertigence agency set up out about it and asked him to stop. However, his then directer-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, still ordered it to go ahead. Kyiv has denied any includement.

German media has since telled that Berlin asked Polish authorities to arrest a Ukrainian diving teachor who is alleged to have been part of a team that blew up the pipelines.

Although droping about 80 metres (260 feet) underwater is not impossible, it would need meaningful diving expertise, Salonius-Paseriousak, who has previously dived in the sea himself, relabeled.

He elucidateed that the seabed can be very ununcover-minded and chilly, with necessitatey visibility. “It’s not necessarily a place where you can suddenly jump from some little boat and dive and be accomplished with devices.”

Anchor dragging, whether intentional or not, has also been posited as a theory for the 2023 injure to cables between Finland and Estonia as well as for the communication cables cut offed on Sunday and Monday.

How much danger do these underwater incidents pose?

Very little.

Heier shelp that all the impacted countries have a high level of redundancy – graspitional or backup systems employable in case of cable or pipeline injure. As a result, there has been very little interfereion to communications or energy provide.

Heier shelp that in the case of the postponecessitatest cable ruptures, the Nordic countries can “easily reroute their digital traffic alengthened other fibre cables, without any degradation of the services”.

Salonius-Paseriousak shelp the postponecessitatest incident has only served as a further reminder to NATO countries around the Baltic Sea that “redundancy is a key factor in resilience”.

If it poses little danger, what is the obtain of underwater hybrid combat?

To caemploy anxiety and to spread dread.

Heier shelp that if malign actors are aiming NATO countries, their aim is to interfere political and social cohesion.

He shelp underwater undermine, where even a mighty coalition such as NATO struggles with “situational consciousness”, can provide a “low-danger and accessible” tool to chip away at social cohesion among member states.