North Sea: Russian spy ship raises concern
These activities intensified after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
A new documentary by a group of public broadcasters in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway reveals the huge threat to ocean energy and data infrastructure in the North Sea and Baltic region. The proxy war includes footage of the Russian research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky allegedly collecting data from windmills, gas pipelines, energy and internet cables.
The group has said that Russia is systematically ‘mapping’ the threat to maritime infrastructure in the North Sea. This will help Russia gather information about weak points, such as places where underwater power and data cables cross each other, which can become easy targets of attack.
Maritime security experts have raised this concern in reports in the British press this week. Russian military forces have long monitored maritime infrastructure, including windmills, communications cables and pipelines. In the 1990s and 2000s, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was cooperating on some security issues, Russian espionage activities in the Nordic waters never stopped.
These activities intensified after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Russian vessels have been observed engaging in espionage activities throughout European waters, including Irish, Portuguese and Mediterranean waters. Indeed, the North Sea’s gas and oil supply is an important resource for the entire European energy market. The increasing emphasis on the production of green energy has assumed greater strategic importance. There are more than 40 windmill fields in the region.
