HELSINKI (Reuters) – European nations must be prepared to face further incidents in the Baltic Sea following the recent damage to undersea infrastructure, leaders of NATO countries in the region said on Tuesday ahead of a security meeting in Helsinki.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert after a string of power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and are discussing an increased NATO presence.
Some 2,000 ships are crossing the Baltic Sea every day, making it difficult to monitor it all, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said.
“Let’s face it, we can’t ensure 100% protection but if we are sending a bold signal then I think that such incidents are going to decrease or even to stop,” Rinkevics told reporters.
Finnish police last month seized a tanker carrying Russian oil and said they suspected the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecoms cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday that this and other recent incidents in the Baltic Sea must be assumed to be part of a hybrid strategy that is threatening European countries.
“It is important that we come together here now and talk about how we can work together to ensure greater security in the Baltic Sea region,” Scholz said.
(Reporting by Essi Lehto, Anne Kauranen and Andreas Rinke in Helsinki, and Louise Rasmussen and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
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