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

Two fiber-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea were cut on Sunday and Monday, raising suspicions about a Chinese cargo ship, a Danish warship currently passing through the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden.

The Chinese ship, which left the port of Ust-Luga in Russia on Friday last week and was seen passing through the area where these incidents took place, has been labeled as “of interest” by the Swedish police, who are looking into the incident.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Wednesday that the incident should be investigated, adding: “We have seen vandalism in the past, so we take it seriously.”

This is just the latest in a series of incidents involving pipelines or cables in the Baltic Sea over the past few years. So what is happening in the Baltic Sea, and what role does the destruction of water play in international conflicts?

What other damage has been caused to pipelines and cables in the Baltic Sea?

The deep, dark, and muddy atmosphere of the Baltic Sea bed has become the center of international affairs since the disruption of the two Nord Stream gas pipelines, owned by a consortium of energy companies including Russian gas giant Gazprom and running from Russia to Germany. with an explosion in September 2022.

After more than two years, despite a lot of finger-pointing, no one has come to grips with the explosion.

The explosion ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which began operating in 2011 and was shut down by Russia a few weeks before the explosion.

They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had never been operational because Germany had withdrawn its certification after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Each pipe consists of two pipes; the explosion left three of the four inoperable.

Some Western officials accused Moscow of destroying the pipelines.

In April 2023, a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland said that Russia had sent a number of suspected spy ships to the Baltic Sea to carry out sabotage operations.

Moscow blamed the United States and its allies, while German and American media reported that pro-Ukraine actors may have been involved.

Tensions have increased since then.

More than a year after the explosion of the Nord Stream pipeline in October 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia – jointly owned by Estonian electricity and gas system operator Elering and Finnish gas transmission system operator Gasgrid – was damaged in an undersea incident. Nearby data cables were also reported to be broken.

Investigators in Finland and Estonia suspect that a Chinese container ship dragging an anchor along the seabed cause damage, which took six months to fix. They did not say whether they believed the damage was intentional.

Why would the Baltic Sea be a hotspot for water pollution?

In short, geography.

The sea has a shallow and narrow bay, three dive sites, and is surrounded by eight NATO countries.

It also borders Russia, with Saint Petersburg, the country’s second largest city, in the eastern corner of the Gulf of Finland and its Baltic Fleet located in the Kaliningrad area.

Tormod Heier, a professor at the Norwegian Defense University College, told Al Jazeera that post-Cold War tensions in the region began in 2004 with the entry of three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – into NATO.

He said there was little consideration in the West that, without any territory, the alliance could “credibly defend the three Baltic states from NATO”.

With Russia “getting stronger and challenging the liberal Western system”, the Baltic Sea region became the alliance’s “Achilles heel”, Heier said.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO in 2024 have further intensified tensions.

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

Are these underwater incidents really destructive?

It’s impossible to know for sure, but experts say it’s possible.

Water destruction is a form of what is known as “hybrid warfare” – a military strategy that uses both conventional and unconventional means to cause instability in regions or countries without giving the appearance of total war.

Combined warfare is nothing new in the region – from GPS hopping in the Baltic states to Russian spy planes swooping into Swedish airspace over the Baltic Sea.

Heier says the good thing about mixed martial arts is that it’s hard to pinpoint a single actor.

This means that the muddy waters of the Baltic Sea provide a suitable “grey area” where the indirect, ambiguous incident of the destruction of a pipeline or cable will still be considered under the “threshold” of a direct war.

The facts surrounding this week’s incident remain “confused” and “it is too early to place or rule out destruction,” Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera.

He said that many accidents can cause accidents underwater, adding: “You have ships full of oil that do not know how shallow and complex the Baltic Sea is.”

More than 2,000 ships cross the Baltic Sea every day, and the number of large ships, including tankers, has grown in recent decades as international trade has boomed.

There has also been an increase in “dark ship” activity since the West imposed sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A “dark ship” is a ship that shuts down the signal system that transmits its location’s coordinates, usually to avoid sanctions.

Heier said that in order to determine the possibility of vandalism, it is important to consider whether the actor has a “reasonable intention” to cut the cord and whether a pattern appears in these incidents.

Many Western leaders believe there is a positive pattern, including Lithuania’s Foreign Minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, who joked about X on Wednesday: “If I had a nickel for every time a Chinese ship pulls anchor at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. near the critical cables, I would have two nickels, which is not much, but it is surprising that it happened twice.”

Salonius-Pasternak said determining whether an incident like Monday’s cable outage is dangerous will take time and expertise.

Professor Ashok Swain, who heads the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden, told Al Jazeera that it should also be done by a neutral organization.

He said that individual countries have committed to investigating the events so far, which raises questions about favoritism and allowing different agencies to blame each other.

Sweden, Denmark and Germany have launched three separate investigations into the Nord Stream pipeline explosion in 2022.

Germany is continuing, but the two Nordic countries have closed their cases with no one found guilty.

So, if it’s water damage, who can do it?

The hybrid nature of this type of war means that each country has its own version of the story, Swain said.

After the Nord Stream explosion, some US and European officials initially said that Moscow had blown up the pipelines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, blamed the US and its allies for the bombings. Russia’s defense minister once blamed Britain’s navy in particular.

In the latest incident, Swedish police said the Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3 was of “interest” and launched an investigation.

About the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3:
Air Defense can confirm that we are in the vicinity of the Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3. Air Defense currently has no further comment.

– Forsvaret (@forsvaretdk) November 20, 2024

One communication cable that was cut ran from the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania, and another ran between Finland and Germany.

According to maritime information, the Chinese vessel was seen passing more than two cables when it was cut. Possible motives are unclear.

How is water damage done?

It depends on the incident.

Seismologists in Denmark and Sweden suggest that the explosion of the Nord Stream pipeline produced an explosion as large as 100 kilograms of dynamite.

A Swedish investigation found traces of explosives in several items found at the blast site.

The Wall Street Journal published a report in 2024 that suggested that a six-member demolition team in Ukraine, including trained divers, may have been responsible for the explosion.

The report alleges that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially approved the program until the US intelligence agency CIA found out about it and asked him to stop it. However, his commander-in-chief at the time, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, still ordered it to continue. Kyiv has denied involvement.

German media have since reported that Berlin has asked Polish authorities to arrest a Ukrainian diving instructor suspected of being part of the pipeline bombing team.

Although going down to about 80 meters (260 feet) underwater is not impossible, it would require significant diving skills, noted Salonius-Pasternak, who has dived in the ocean himself.

He explained that the sea is unforgiving and cold, and it doesn’t look good. “It’s not really a place where you can suddenly jump from a small boat and dive and have a blast.”

Dragging the anchor, whether it was done on purpose or not, was also put forward as a theory for the 2023 damage to the cables between Finland and Estonia and the communication lines that were cut on Sunday and Monday.

How dangerous are these underwater events?

It’s very small.

Heier said all affected countries have a high level of redundancy – additional or backup systems are available in case of cable or pipeline damage. As a result, there was very little disruption to communications or power supply.

Heier said that in the case of the recent cable outages, the Nordic countries “can reorganize their digital traffic with other fiber cables, without any disruption of services”.

Salonius-Pasternak said the latest incident served as a constant reminder to NATO countries around the Baltic Sea that “unemployment is an important factor in strengthening power”.

If it’s a small risk, what’s the benefit of underwater hybrid warfare?

Causing anxiety and spreading fear.

Heier said that when corrupt actors target NATO countries, their aim is to disrupt political and social cohesion.

He said the destruction of water, where even a powerful alliance like NATO is fighting “situational awareness”, can provide a “low-risk and accessible” tool to destroy social cohesion between member states.