Experts warned that after cables were cut and navigation systems were jumbled, Russia has intensified its hybrid warfare methods in the Baltic Sea and NATO nations in the area should brace for a protracted struggle with Moscow.
In another indication of the escalating tensions in the Baltic Sea, where all of the neighbouring nations—aside from Russia—are now NATO members, Berlin stated this week that a Russian cargo ship had recently shot signal lights at a German military helicopter.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius stated on Thursday that there is a “significant increase of Russian navy and civilian vessels in the Baltic Sea at the moment.”
“What the Russian navy is trying to do is send a signal, saying: ‘We are here’,” he added.
Konstantin Kalachev, a Russian political expert, stated that “Russia does not at all like the point of view that would have the Baltic Sea be a NATO ‘lake’.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, tensions in the area have increased, and European nations frequently voice their alarm over “hybrid attacks” that are attributed to Russia.
“The Baltic is in a kind of grey zone between war and peace where NATO countries have to be ready for harassment of any kind,” Nils Wang, a former Danish navy commander, told AFP.
Russia wants to show “that it can basically still make it troublesome for NATO to operate in the Baltic,” he said.
