NATO’s members must increase the security of undersea energy infrastructure, the Polish president’s top defense advisor told reporters in Vilnius.
Baltic states have become increasingly concerned for the grid’s safety amidst a wave of sabotage attacks targeting the undersea cables making up the system.
“Allies within the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) must make every effort to increase their attention directed to the Baltic, to energy infrastructure, especially the undersea one,” Jacek Siewiera, the chief of Poland’s National Security Bureau told reporters at the end of his Vilnius visit.
Siewiera’s string of diplomatic trips to Lithuania, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia, comes amidst growing concerns about the vulnerability of crucial undersea power cables to attacks from Russia’s shadow fleet vessels roaming international waters under the radar of sanctioned trading – and security – systems.
A number of such cables, including the Estlink2 power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, have been severed in the past months.
Eagle S, an oil tanker belonging to the Russian shadow fleet, a network of old ships evading official sanctions on oil trade with Russia, is under investigation for damaging the underwater energy link.
“We will be taking action in the near future on the NATO side, but also at the level of the European Commission and our national legislative processes to criminalize, for example, dragging the anchor on the seabed, which is not currently a crime,” Siewiera told reporters.
Dragging an anchor across the seabed is a notorious way for undersea cables to get damaged and is difficult to persecute under current legislation.
The cooperative protection of the undersea energy infrastructure in the Baltic region will be discussed at a NATO conference on January 14 which will be hosted by Finland.
The issue has gained top priority for the countries in the region, especially in anticipation of the decoupling of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in February from a Russian Soviet-era power grid and subsequent synchronization with European systems of the countries.
The move will end the Baltic’s states dependence on Moscow in ensuring a smooth energy supply and is set to shake up the power dynamics in the region.
“For this reason, cooperation at both the operational and political levels in the Baltic region assumes special importance,” Siewiera said.
