Tension increases in the Baltic area. The Armada swedish confronts with some regularity the submarines of the Kremlin. “Almost weekly,” said the sailors’ chief of operations, Capt. Marko Petkovic.
In this sense, and according to the British newspaper The Guardian, the Swedish Navy is preparing for “a new surge” in the event of a ceasefire or armistice in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
The Swedish command assured that Moscow is continually strengthening its presence in the northern European region, and that sightings of its ships were common by members of the Swedish Navy.
The sea region Baltic faces an increasingly wide range of “threats”, including suspected hybrid drone attacks, sabotage of underwater infrastructure and a “constant” flow of old tankers carrying crude oil from Russia.
In fact, last month, the United Kingdom Secretary of Defense warned of the presence of a Russian “spy” ship that had entered British waters. Once there, pointed laser beams at several military pilots. The Defense Minister noted that they were facing a “new era of threats” from “hostile countries.”
anti-submarine warfare
The Scandinavian country recently hosted a major NATO anti-submarine warfare exercise. Nine countries were present at the training, among which were Sweden, Germany, France and the United States.
Hundreds of people practiced their underwater hunting skills to “strengthen the readiness, interoperability and responsiveness of the Alliance in the face of threats” of this type.
Deployment of the Swedish Armed Forces in the presence of a Russian submarine in the Baltic Sea.
“The Baltic nations contribute to the I’LL TAKE an impressive anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability, plus experienced leadership and maritime capability. We thank the Swedish Navy for organizing Exercise Merlin, as well as all the navies of the I’LL TAKE who participate and share their regional experience in ASW”, includes a statement from the Allied Maritime Command, the authority for naval operations of the Atlantic alliance.
As reported in the Manchester newspaper, the “underwater landscape” of the Baltic “it makes it difficult to detect” underwater vessels given the ease of their camouflage.
The Swedish captain confirmed that Moscow was “increasing its capabilities” and producing a Kilo-class submarine – nomenclature used by the I’LL TAKE to classify Soviet submersibles – a year in the city of Saint Petersburg and the enclave of Kaliningrad, located between Poland and Lithuania.
He added that Russia was carrying out a program of “constant and deliberate modernization of its ships”.
“Once a ceasefire or armistice is established in Ukrainewe can only evaluate, and we evaluate, that Russia will strengthen its capabilities in this region,” he declared. Petkovic. “That said, the Swedish Navy needs to continually grow and focus on the big picture,” the military command added.
He described it as “worrying” the parallel fleet of Russian tankers and did not rule out the possibility that these ships were used to launch drones. “The shadow fleet in itself is not a military problem, but it could affect our nations from a military perspective,” Petkovic added.
Difficult conditions
The underwater conditions in the Baltic area are not the most favorable. Various factors such as poor visibility over the waterthe high level of salt and low temperature make underwater infrastructure especially vulnerable in the region.
The Chief of Operations of the Swedish Navy considers that the increase in surveillance of the I’LL TAKE “it’s having an impact.” He stated that since the beginning, last January, of the Operation Baltic Sentinel -the mission of the Atlantic alliance to secure the underwater infrastructures of the region- “we have not seen any incidents with cables.”
And he settled: “First of all, it shows that the alliance works, the cohesion. And we are closing ranks against a specific threat. The Baltic Sentry has proven it. “Regardless of whether any of the incidents have been state-sponsored, due to poor navigation, or any other cause in between, it has raised awareness among the merchant fleet to be more cautious when navigating our regional waters.”
Marine sabotage
The tension in the area comes from before. On November 17 and 18, 2024, two submarine fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged, in an act that the German Defense Minister, Boris Pistoriusdescribed it as “sabotage.”
The Swedish police declared that a Chinese cargo ship, the Yi Peng 3was in the area of the cables when they were cut. The cables, as thick as “a garden hose,” carry 99% of international telecommunications traffic for personal, commercial and government use spanning more than 850,000 miles, 1,574,200 kilometers.
Such wiring facilitates financial transactions worth trillions of dollars a day, carry sensitive government communicationsmake voice calls and transmit data over the Internet.
submarine cables
ElDr. Sidharth Kaushalsenior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank, said undersea cables are “vital to the global economy.”