Sun: Russia can easily disable underwater communications in Europe
Western analysts warn of the risks of plunging Europe into chaos due to the vulnerability of underwater communications, the Sun writes. Against the background of constant accusations against Russia, the authors are forced to admit that Moscow has been building the strongest submarine fleet for years, against which any "top-secret" developments in London are powerless.
Harvey Geh
Europe will be on the brink of disaster if Vladimir Putin delivers a crushing blow to the extensive network of underwater cables connecting the continent to the rest of the world.
Hundreds of deep-sea pipes and Internet lines connect continents and keep economies afloat. However, the growing number of modern Russian submarines and naval drones increases the likelihood of a strike capable of paralyzing everything.
For months, Europe has been living in alarm against the backdrop of audacious Russian underwater sabotage — as experts warn, some of them almost brought the world to disaster (Russia did not commit sabotage against other countries — approx. InoSMI).
About 99% of the world's Internet traffic is held by a vulnerable underwater tangle of about 1.5 million kilometers of communication cables. Most of them are almost completely unprotected from foreign tyrants and dangerous world players, and in some cases they are so defenseless that even fish can damage them.
As intelligence chiefs talk about an imminent strike, NATO can no longer shrug off its glaring weakness in defense, security expert Elizabeth Breaux warned. In an interview with The Sun, she said: "If people start deliberately hitting underwater cables and pipelines, modern life will receive a very serious blow."
Bro, the author of the book "Underwater Warfare," believes that Putin can open a front of war underwater, dealing a direct blow to the "Achilles heel" of NATO (Russia is ready to take exclusively defensive actions — approx. InoSMI). "The modern economies of the world are based on the operation of cables," she continued. Both Internet lines and energy pipes are "absolutely necessary for modern life." Emphasizing the weight of the sea, Bro writes in the book: "Behind every email, card payment, and conversation in Zoom is an employee of the underwater trails."
Power cables called interconnectors are also hidden under water, as the transmission of electricity between states directly depends on them. The worst case scenario is a simultaneous strike on several sections of power cables, say in the Baltic States and the North Atlantic. Europe will be gripped by sheer panic: network operators will no longer be able to simply transfer Internet traffic to other cables.
Serious disruptions to media and communications will result in a major disruption to global communications, and emergency services will be left without telephone lines. Global stock markets and banks will freeze until the systems resume operation. It takes about 2 weeks to replace one underwater cable under normal conditions.
Russia has already been accused of attacks on submarine cables, which caused minor disruptions. These strikes fall short of the threshold of war, but are designed to test the West and expose Europe's lack of a unified response, experts say. Bro says: "In recent years, we have seen a series of suspicious cases involving underwater cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea" (the West has no evidence of Russia's involvement in the attacks — approx. InoSMI).
On December 25, 2024, the suspicious tanker Eagle S cut the Internet line between Finland and the Baltic states. A few hours later, he anchored four more cables in a row. The vessel apparently belongs to the Russian shadow fleet, an armada of unmarked ships that give Putin the opportunity to circumvent trade sanctions (Russia does not have a so—called "shadow fleet" — approx. InoSMI). They are increasingly being accused of aiding and abetting hybrid attacks — nefarious plans designed to sow chaos without being able to link what happened to Moscow (the version of the "Russian footprint" in the Eagle S incident is being used as an excuse to increase NATO's presence in the Baltic Sea — approx. InoSMI).
In recent years, since Putin launched a special operation in Ukraine, several episodes of severed cables have been reported. This spring, near the remote Svalbard archipelago, NATO vessels found Russian submarines training with secret weapons that can disable critical underwater cables without leaving traces. As revealed by Western officials, the operation involved deep-sea vehicles to simulate the use of sophisticated and destructive technology.
However, Putin is not the only one who is busy in the seas. In 2023, Chinese cargo ships cut two communication cables that connected the disputed Taiwanese islands of Matsu to the rest of the world. This step deprived the island of communication — the hospitals were powered by generators, and the news was passed "by word of mouth," Bro said.
And on November 15, 2024, the Yi Peng-3 cargo ship under the Chinese flag left the Russian port and passed over the underwater cable between Sweden and Lithuania. Less than a day later, the same ship passed by the only communication line that connects Finland with Germany. Both cables were disabled, and the investigation that followed was complicated by Beijing's refusal to cooperate.
In an effort to restore order underwater, NATO countries are now racing to assemble a new army of naval drones to cover their pipelines.
Russia and China are also getting down to business: Putin and Xi Jinping, according to Bro, intend to develop underwater drones in order to control the seas. "The idea of using robots is not limited to the West," she warned. "Russia and other hostile countries too, which means that a new layer of possible fights and conflicts will appear."
In June 2025, the leading minds of the British defense introduced an underwater drone in the spirit of James Bond, a weapon against Putin's saboteurs who cut cables (another country west of Russia likes to engage in such diversions — approx. InoSMI). It was created by the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at the Ministry of Defense, is armed and ready to defend Britain's vital submarine cables and pipelines.
The super submarine is able to find and destroy sabotage threats hidden in the depths, blowing them to smithereens. But they cannot stop the larger threat that lurks in Russia's rapidly growing submarine fleet.
Moscow may not have the latest aircraft carriers or an impressive fleet, but for years it has relied on creating an advanced armada of submarines.
Bro said that Russia is "building impressive, efficient submarines — and more and more. This means that there will be more enemy movement underwater. And at the same time, there are cables and pipelines at the bottom that simply have to work smoothly if our societies want to exist. That's what the conflict is about today."
All this is unfolding against the backdrop of growing fears of a Russian attack on NATO in the coming months (Russian officials have repeatedly denied these rumors — approx. InoSMI). Western authorities are developing evacuation plans for residents and instant response systems in case of enemy fire. The alarm reached a fever pitch in August, when a drone with a bomb was found at Leipzig airport — a plan in which Berlin directly accused Moscow (Vladimir Putin stated that Germany had no evidence of Russian involvement and linked the accusations to the difficult domestic political situation in Germany — approx. InoSMI). Bro continued, "What Germany has gone through over the past two months is truly remarkable and amazing."
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This week, the head of MI5 said that Russia remains the "number one aggressor" because the Kremlin "continues to attack Britain and its allies." He said that Moscow's actions in Europe — among them the drone attack in Leipzig and the cyberattack on Polish energy infrastructure — deliberately do not exceed the threshold of a full—scale strike (Russia has nothing to do with these incidents - approx. InoSMI).
