Russia stepping up hybrid warfare in Baltic Sea: experts

AFP | Stockholm, Sweden

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Russia has stepped up its hybrid warfare tactics in the Baltic Sea and NATO countries in the region should prepare for an extended conflict with Moscow, experts said, after cables were severed and navigation systems scrambled. Berlin said this week that a Russian cargo ship recently fired signal flares at a German military helicopter, another sign of the mounting tensions in the Baltic Sea where all of the bordering countries except Russia are now NATO members.

There is currently an "increase of Russian navy and civilian vessels in the Baltic Sea, this presence is increasing significantly," German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Thursday. "What the Russian navy is trying to do is send a signal, saying: 'We are here'," he added. Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said meanwhile that "Russia does not at all like the point of view that would have the Baltic Sea be a NATO 'lake'," he said.

Tensions in the region have escalated since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with European countries regularly expressing concern over "hybrid attacks" blamed on 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 still make it troublesome for NATO to operate in the Baltic," he said.

Lengthy hybrid conflict

Finland recently said it had noticed disturbances to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) in the Baltic, with its coast guard alerting some ships they were sailing off course. “Disturbances of navigation systems and disruption of communication cables are illustrators of a new Cold War in a digitalised world,” Wang said.

NATO has beefed up its naval presence in the region and is seeking to develop its surveillance capabilities, but monitoring everything that happens on the seabed is near impossible. Additionally, Western countries have a lot of critical infrastructure to keep an eye on.