Yle: NATO ships to arrive to secure Baltic Sea infrastructure at end of week
It was recently revealed that NATO is aet to reinforce its military presence in the Baltic Sea by sending ships to protect the underwater infrastructure in the region. According to a report by Finnish national broadcaster Yle, the operation will begin at the end of the week.
According to Yle, around 10 NATO ships are expected to arrive in the Baltic Sea and will remain in the region until April.
The Gulf of Finland will continue to be guarded primarily by Estonian and Finnish vessels. Ships from other NATO member states will also come to the Baltic Sea.
The ships will be stationed close to the underwater cables and should act as a deterrent to reduce the risk of further sabotage in the area.
On December 30, NATO made the decision to reinforce its military presence in the Baltic Sea to protect the infrastructure, following the recent caused to underwater cables between Estonia and Finland.
The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), which comprises ten NATO member states, also announced in a joint statement on Monday that it will use artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor shipping traffic in the vicinity of critical infrastructure in the Baltic.
Finnish authorities suspect that the Eagle S, a tanker registered in the Cook Islands, which was dragging its anchor along the seabed, cut the EstLink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia on Christmas Day and may have also damaged four other data cables. The Eagle S is seen as the backbone of the so-called "shadow fleet," which Russia is using to evade Western sanctions imposed due to its military aggression against Ukraine.
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Editor: Karl Kivil, Michael Cole
Source: Yle
