NATO will increase its military presence and technological innovation in the Baltic Sea to protect critical infrastructure from sabotage, the head of the transatlantic alliance said at a Helsinki Summit on Tuesday. 

Safeguarding infrastructure “is of utmost importance,” Mark Rutte told reporters, citing energy from pipelines and the 95% of internet traffic that is secured through undersea cables.

In the last two months alone, there’s been damage to one cable between Lithuania and Sweden, another between Germany and Finland, and others between Estonia and Finland.

Investigations are underway, but NATO’s Secretary General believes there is cause for grave concern.

“We have seen elements of a campaign to destabilise our societies through cyber-attacks, assassination attempts and sabotage,” Rutte said, with Russia the presumed culprit.

In response, NATO is increasing surveillance via a small fleet of maritime drones, while an enhanced surveillance operation called “Baltic Sentry” involves frigates and maritime patrol aircraft.

“We will respond decisively when critical infrastructure in our neighbourhood is at risk. Protecting it requires both national and international action,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said.

Leaders of NATO countries in the Baltic region also pledged to push for robust enforcement, especially when it comes to the Russian shadow fleet of tankers used by Moscow to evade Western sanctions on oil sales.

“We need to make full use of the possibilities allowed by international law to take action against suspicious vessels,” Stubb stressed.

Last month, Finnish police seized a tanker carrying Russian oil, citing suspicions the ship had damaged the Estlink-2 power cable which connects Finland and Estonia by dragging its anchor along the seabed on Christmas Day.

“Ship captains must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, impounding and arrest,” Rutte said.

Ahead of the meeting, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs said monitoring was difficult in practice, as around 2,000 ships pass through the Baltic every day.

“Let’s face it, we can’t ensure 100% protection, but if we send a bold signal, I think such incidents will decrease or even stop,” Rinkēvičs told journalists in Helsinki.

Germany will also participate in the Baltic Sentry mission, Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed in separate remarks to reporters.

“We will participate with everything we have in the way of naval capabilities; that will vary, as far as the concrete possibilities of deployment are concerned,” Scholz said, when asked if Germany had made a specific promise on the contribution of ships or planes.

Additional sources • AP