Photo signals Russia’s scary next move

This has the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland ringing alarm bells.

The chief of Norway’s intelligence service told media the Kremlin was directly involved in this intimidating surveillance operation. And a Danish intelligence spokesperson adds that these tactics appear to be long-established preparations for a “full-on” conflict with Western Europe.

But the sight of heavily armed and armoured Russian military personnel patrolling the decks of supposedly commercial fishing vessels operating in the North Sea has triggered alarm bells across Europe.

The trawlers have, in recent months, been observed lingering in the vicinity of vital undersea internet cables, gas pipelines, and offshore wind farms.

And a coalition of European media groups has begun pulling all the evidence together in a picture that appears to paint a scene of widespread potential sabotage.

The Kremlin has dismissed the claims.

It calls the media and intelligence agency interest in the vessels a “mistake”. And it has renewed calls for “a transparent and impartial international inquiry” into the devastating sabotage operation of the Baltic Sea Nord Stream natural gas pipelines in September 2022.

“The media in these countries have made a mistake in their investigation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “They prefer to once again accuse Russia without basis.”

The dark struggle

Public broadcaster DR in Denmark, NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and Yle in Finland sent camera crews into the North Sea late last year to film the Russian trawlers. They were met with masked guards in full military combat gear.

The first part of their report, titled “The Shadow War”, was released on Thursday.

It explains the Russian ships had raised suspicions by approaching several wind farm sites before inexplicably “loitering” nearby.

“We saw in recent months that Russian actors tried to uncover how the energy system works in the North Sea. It is the first time we have seen this,” Dutch General Jan Swillens told a news conference in February. He added that a Dutch coast guard ship escorted the ship out of the area.

Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom energy company built the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines to supply Germany with 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually.

Each pipeline consists of two pipes. Three were ruptured by underwater explosions shortly after Europe imposed sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine last year.

The West blames Moscow for the blasts.

Moscow blames the West.

Attention has since focused on the movements of commercial, civilian and military vessels in the area during the preceding weeks. A deliberately confusing game of finger-pointing has since ensued.

A deepening crisis

The suspicious Russian ships are operated by Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI), an organisation long associated with espionage operations. The combined report cites intelligence officials from the Nordic countries as confirming.

This agency was behind developing and testing the nuclear-powered deep-sea sabotage vessel Losharik. The submarine experienced an on-board fire in 2019 near the border of Russia and Norway, killing 14 of its crew.

Now Russian trawlers appear to have been fitted with advanced communications and surveillance equipment, including underwater sensors, not generally associated with fishing vessels.

The suspicion is they are being used to map critical underwater infrastructure.

“Russia is secretly charting this infrastructure and is undertaking activities which indicate preparations for disruption and sabotage”, Dutch intelligence agencies reported.

But appears to be just part of a multi-front “probe” of European defences.

This week, the UK government’s National Cyber Security Centre issued an official threat warning to electricity, water and other critical infrastructure operators.

It says Russian hackers seek to “disrupt or destroy” these vital life-support systems.

“Disclosing this threat is not something we do lightly,” UK cabinet minister Oliver Dowden added. But he said it is necessary for “companies to understand the current risk they face, and take action to defend themselves and the country.

“These are the companies in charge of keeping our country running. Of keeping the lights on. Our shared prosperity depends on them taking their own security seriously.”

Short-fused patience

Britain’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace this week reported that several Russian submarines had been observed behaving abnormally.

He said the submarines are being tracked in the North Atlantic, the Irish Sea and the North Sea, “doing some strange routes that they normally wouldn’t do”.

Submarines often follow undersea “highways” chosen for their extreme depths and sensor-confusing temperature layers. Operating outside these areas increases the chances of being detected.

The UK Defence Secretary’s report comes after US officials stated there are indications of increased Russian activity in US and Mediterranean waters in what appeared to be aggressive “Soviet-style submarine deployments”.

Moscow has one of the world’s largest submarine fleets, with about 58 operational vessels.

And the Kremlin says it has begun a series of “surprise inspections” of military installations, assets and commands to ensure a high state of readiness.

This week, the Russian Pacific Fleet’s nuclear submarine Tomsk reportedly test-fired an old P-70 Granit anti-ship missile to “destroy” a simulated aircraft carrier some 200km away.

It was part of a without-notice exercise involving 12 submarines, 167 ships, 89 aircraft and 25,000 troops conducted by Russia’s Pacific Command. Its commander – Admiral Sergei Avakyants – was on Wednesday reassigned to take over the military’s sports training program.

President Putin has since obliquely indicated some of these submarines and aircraft may now be redeployed to other theatres of operations.