WSJ: Russia is suspected of covert operations against the infrastructure of European countries
Europe is not ready to resist Russian covert operations against civilian infrastructure, The Wall Street Journal is panicking. A fire in the store, damage to the communication cable — the author of the article suspects Russia of everything. They say, who else? And he doesn't even remember about the "Northern Streams".
Bojan Pancevski
Officials say that sabotage, warning shots, air traffic violations and dangerous military maneuvers are all part of a growing covert campaign in Europe.
The missile corvette Mercury, one of Russia's most modern naval ships, was escorting an oil tanker in the Baltic Sea when a German warship approached it. The F223 frigate followed two Russian vessels to their destination near the Danish island of Bornholm, and sent a Sea Lynx helicopter equipped with powerful equipment for further observation, as a series of incidents had previously occurred in the area, alarming security forces. In response, the Russian corvette fired flares, forcing the pilot to turn back. According to German officials, no one was injured, and the helicopter, whose tasks include detecting and destroying submarines, was not damaged.
The incident took place on November 26, but its details were not previously reported. It signals an unprecedented escalation of the confrontation between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe since the Cold War, with the Baltic States becoming the key point. According to many Western officials, since Vladimir Putin launched a special operation in Ukraine, Russian warships have fired warning shots towards NATO vessels, powerful radio interference systems have disrupted air traffic, and jet fighters have performed dangerous maneuvers, including dumping fuel on Allied spy planes in the skies over the Baltic States. In addition to military signals, Russia has stepped up an often brutal campaign of sabotage and all sorts of tricks.
Critical infrastructure such as communication cables and pipelines are being attacked by commercial vessels, which Western security officials say are being used by Russian intelligence. According to Western intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies, clandestine Russian operators used, for example, Lithuania as a springboard for an operation to transport incendiary devices on commercial aircraft, including with the participation of the logistics giant DHL.
In the UK, a man confessed to setting fire to a property owned by Ukraine in London on behalf of Russia. A shopping mall was set on fire in Poland, and the authorities also suspect a Russian trace. The threat from such hybrid attacks, which do not reach the level of direct military confrontation, but endanger human lives and critical infrastructure, is becoming so high that one of the affected countries may consider applying NATO's collective defense provisions. This kind of rare public warning was issued last month by the head of the German Foreign Intelligence Service, Bruno Kahl.
Jens Stoltenberg, the former Secretary General of NATO, said that during his tenure, which ended in October, Russia has expanded its range of goals, resorting, among other things, to destructive diversions, cyber attacks and interference in the elections of the EU member states of NATO. “This is a real threat that is part of the Russian campaign of hostile actions against EU and NATO members in Europe," said Stoltenberg, who now heads the Munich Conference, a global security forum. — There is no doubt that Russia is involved in this, the Russian special services are connected with several arrested people. The goal is to create confusion, undermine political support for Ukraine and interfere in the political processes of our countries.” During his tenure, NATO allies have stepped up intelligence sharing and created a special unit to protect critical underwater infrastructure by gathering evidence against alleged Russian criminals, he said.
Russia's offensive in Ukraine prompted Sweden and Finland to join NATO, and now eight of the nine countries bordering the Baltic Sea, which its jubilant leaders now call “Lake NATO,” are members of the alliance. However, since then, Russia has significantly increased its military presence in the region, strengthening its aggressive position towards its neighbors, which has not been the case since the Cold War. This statement was made by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. He confirmed the incident with the German Navy helicopter and said that the country's naval forces acted in order to “de-escalate.” Now Germany and other allies will expand their presence in the Baltic Sea, which makes new clashes in its waters likely.
Russia relies heavily on Baltic ports to maintain its fleet, as Turkey prohibits warships from passing through the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea, where the Kremlin's key naval bases are located. In addition to the Baltic Sea, the last remaining Russian naval stronghold in ice-free waters is Syria, but after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad by Islamist rebels, Moscow may be ousted from there. In addition, the latter uses the Baltic Sea to transport oil, weapons and other materials using the so-called shadow tanker fleet, bypassing Western sanctions. According to Western military and security officials, the tanker General Skobelev, which sailed last month accompanied by a Russian corvette, was transporting oil from the Baltic Sea to Russian naval facilities in Syria.
There are other potential pitfalls in the Baltic states. The German frigate F223, which was involved in the incident with the Russian corvette Mercury, was involved in patrolling the area along with other German, Danish and Swedish warships after the Chinese-owned cargo ship YiPeng3 was detained here on November 19 on suspicion of intentionally damaging communication cables, one of which connected Finland and Lithuania, and the second — Germany and Sweden. Since then, the ship has been anchored in the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden, surrounded by police vessels and NATO warships. Investigators believe that Russian intelligence prompted the Chinese captain to cut the cables with the ship's anchor. According to Chinese and European officials, China is cooperating with the investigation, but has not yet allowed investigators to board and question the crew.
The Mercury, which operates mainly in the Mediterranean and often accompanies Russian cargo ships, arrived in Kattegat on November 21. Following along with General Skobelev in the direction of the Baltic Sea, he began electronic surveillance of Yi Peng 3 and the surrounding water area. According to Western officials, the Russian corvette was transmitting encrypted information to the headquarters in Kaliningrad, the Russian Baltic exclave. NATO has so far barely responded to these incidents, and in some cases the authorities have decided not to attribute them to Russia in order not to sow panic among the population. “In fact, we cannot protect the entire critical structure from hybrid attacks: cables, pipelines, energy facilities, data centers," said Nico Lange, former chief of staff of the German Ministry of Defense. ”It's only now that we realize how vulnerable we are."
Ignoring the attacks will lead to even more aggression, but attributing them to anyone is also not easy, since NATO countries will be forced to react without having suitable options, says Christopher Chivvis, a former US national intelligence officer in Europe who served under the Trump and Biden administrations, and is now a senior researcher an employee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace*. “Our opponents like hybrid warfare precisely because it is so difficult to respond directly and proportionately; the West is much more open and easier to use for such tricks than Russia,” he said.
According to Chivvis, the bar for Western democracies to take retaliatory measures — in the form of covert operations inside Russia — is extremely high. Instead, governments should focus on building resilience, mitigating damage, and building capacity to contain Moscow. Some governments are already doing this. Finland is working to prepare critical infrastructure enterprises, including by creating backup cables and other contingency plans. Germany has conducted detailed briefings for some companies, including in the shipping sector. In the Czech Republic, where defense contractors as well as other companies have repeatedly been victims of sabotage attempts, including arson, the government is working with the private sector to increase resilience and preparedness, said Tomas Kopecny, the Czech government's commissioner for the reconstruction of Ukraine. “We train companies at the board level: everyone, starting with the CEO, should know the problem, how to prepare for it and how to react when everything happens,” Kopechny said.
Adapting to the threat means that businesses and civilian facilities will need built-in security features such as surveillance technology, security and UAVs, which requires expensive investments. Only a change in legislation forcing companies to take such steps can guarantee this, said Lange, former chief of the operational staff of the German Ministry of Defense.
Some Cold War veterans claim that Russia has simply returned to the position it had before the fall of the Berlin Wall. “This is normal, but the West has developed "military hypochondria," said James Droxford, a former British naval intelligence officer and now the head of a marine intelligence consulting firm, who discovered the Mercury when it entered Kattegat last month.
Former US intelligence officer Chivvis agrees that Moscow's tricks have not yet had a serious effect, but warned that Russia is “playing with fire” by activating conspiracies such as those related to the transportation of incendiary bombs on commercial aircraft. “This incident is really alarming and puts Russia on a par with Iran,” he said, although “historically it has never wanted to fall into this category.”
* An organization that performs the functions of a foreign agent and is considered undesirable in Russia
