Norway’s National Security Agency (NSM), tasked with protecting the country’s vital interests, highlighted on Tuesday the vulnerability of Norway’s national underwater infrastructure, a major supplier of energy to Europe, AFP reports. The concern comes after two incidents in recent years.
“The experience of the period since the beginning of the (Russian) invasion of Ukraine shows that underwater infrastructures that transport gas, electricity and electronic communications can be particularly susceptible to and vulnerable to sabotage,” NSM wrote in the report.
For the underwater infrastructure, as well as for other important objects of the country, “security measures must be implemented in order to achieve a level of security”, the Norwegian agency notes.
The report, which identifies more than 50 violations of Norway’s national security, comes months after the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the nearby Baltic Sea in spectacular explosions that have not yet been identified. .
After Russia started a war in Ukraine, Norway became the main supplier of natural gas to the European continent, which it supplies mainly through an extensive network of underwater gas pipelines.
The Scandinavian kingdom is also a major exporter of oil, partly through pipelines, and a major supplier of electricity through long cables connecting several European countries.
In a sign of the vulnerability of these strategic facilities, in early 2021, part of a cable monitoring submarine activity near Norway mysteriously disappeared. Then, in January 2022, another communication cable between the mainland and the Svalbard archipelago in the North Sea was severed.
In both cases, it was not possible to establish the culprits, but the Norwegian media pointed to neighboring Russia, emphasizing the presence of Russian trawlers in the targeted areas during these periods.
“The government understands that aggressive and targeted measures are needed to respond to the challenges we face,” Norwegian Justice Minister Emilie Enger Maal commented after receiving the NSM report on Tuesday.
(Agerpress)
Source: Hot News
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