Russia may sabotage submarine cables to punish Western countries for supporting Ukraine, NATO’s intelligence chief warned on Wednesday, as the alliance ramps up efforts to protect underwater infrastructure following the Nord Stream attacks, Reuters reported.

“There is a growing concern that Russia may target submarine cables and other critical infrastructure in an attempt to disrupt life in the West in order to gain leverage over those countries that keep Ukraine safe,” David Cuttler told reporters.

“The Russians are more active in the area than we’ve seen in recent years,” he said, adding that they are patrolling the Atlantic more than in recent years and have stepped up their activity in the North and Baltic seas.

Threats to submarine cables and pipelines came into the public spotlight after explosions in September 2022, still unexplained, damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, built to transport gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea.

Citing the ongoing investigation, Cutler declined to say who might have been behind the attacks.

How valuable are these submarine cables really?

As concerns grow about the safety of undersea cables, Western countries are looking to turn the North Sea into a “green engine” by planning a series of new wind farms that will be connected to the mainland by cables.

Other undersea cables carry about 95 percent of the world’s Internet traffic at speeds of about 200 terabits per second, with 200 of those 400 cables considered critical, according to NATO.

“In total, they do about $10 trillion in financial transactions every day, so these cables are really the backbone of the economy,” said Cuttler, NATO’s assistant secretary general for intelligence and security.

He warned that NATO’s adversaries realize the enormous strategic advantage of being able to threaten the security of the Internet, energy and Western financial systems.

“Russia is actively mapping critical allied infrastructure both on land and on the seabed,” Cuttler said, describing the procedure as part of an underwater reconnaissance program run by part of the Russian Defense Ministry.

NATO says it is closely monitoring Russian ships

However, NATO allies keep a close eye on Russian ships equipped with sensors that can collect electronic or acoustic information from the seabed, he stressed, saying spy ships can be identified by their antennas or by unusual activity near critical areas.

NATO has significantly increased the number of ships patrolling the North and Baltic seas since the Nord Stream explosions and has created a critical submarine infrastructure protection cell to improve cooperation with industry and experts.

“The threat is real, and NATO will step up” its work, said German Lieutenant General Hans-Werner Wirmann, who has headed the new unit since February.

Asked what the industry could do to make new wind farms more attack-resistant, he suggested connecting them to the mainland with multiple cables rather than just one.

The NATO intelligence chief’s comments came after a new episode of a joint investigation by Scandinavian broadcasters revealed that the activities of Russia’s “ghost fleet” in the Baltic Sea consist of ships whose transmitters have been switched off so that their movements are impossible. traced, raises new suspicions about Moscow’s possible role in the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

The first episode of an investigation by journalists from DR (Denmark), NRK (Norway), SVT (Sweden) and Yle (Finland) last month revealed that Russia had a plan to sabotage wind farms and cut communication cables in the Russian North Sea. vessels disguised as fishing and research vessels, but which are actually equipped to monitor and map some of the key infrastructure operating here with their transmitters switched off.

The new episode of the investigation was centered around the suspicious movements of Russian ships before the explosions that rocked and severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines running through the bottom of the Baltic Sea at the end of September last year.

Journalists now believe that in addition to the Admiral Volodymyrsky, the ships that are part of Russia’s “ghost fleet” include an alleged research vessel called the Sibyryakov, a tugboat SB-123 and another vessel that investigators have not yet identified. to identify it.