Inside Nato’s battle against subsea sabotage
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Toby Gillis, and Stuart Willey. There's been more damage to underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea this week, adding to a long list of incidents where cables or pipelines have been cut since the start of the war in Ukraine. Some are calling it a shadow war and blame Russia for the interference.

It's an accusation Moscow denies, but hackles are raised in countries around the Baltic and elsewhere. The British Defence Secretary said last week a Russian ship had been loitering around UK undersea infrastructure, part of what he called growing Russian aggression. The Swedish government has detained the ship involved in that latest incident involving an internet cable between Sweden and Latvia.

But it's hard to prove the Maltese-flagged ship deliberately damaged the cable, and so often no actions can be taken. Now, chiefs at NATO have had enough, and a new mission is cracking down on what could be a campaign of sabotage. Our guest today is George Grylls, the Times' defence correspondent, who's been out on the Baltic Sea with troops investigating what's going on. George, what are the commanders telling you about this mission?

So it's a response to a series of incidents that happened at the end of last year. So in the space of two months, three cables in the Baltic Sea were cut in basically suspicious circumstances. Now, these are the cables that, to give you an idea of how vital they are for the modern world, about 95% of internet traffic is

is provided through underwater cables. Trillions of dollars of financial transactions are kind of underwritten by instant communications along these lines, and not to mention the energy that keeps the lights on and the heating on. So,

It's hard to underplay how important these cables are. And NATO has basically had enough because they suspect Russia of sabotaging the cables deliberately using kind of oil tankers that are supposedly transferring goods to, for example, drag their anchor along the seabed and rupture these cables.

And so Baltic Sentry is NATO's response where they've basically sent a kind of flotilla of, you know, there's a Dutch frigate, there's a German minesweeper, there's British aircraft, there's Dutch fighter jets, all right to the eastern, the kind of northeastern corner of the Baltic, right on the border with Russia to patrol that area and basically interrogate those people who are passing through the

to stop them breaking cables. This feels like a bit of a step up from NATO. Could Russia argue it's an escalation of sorts?

I mean, the reason why we saw the action now is because there were three incidents in two months. There was another incident in 2023. A Chinese company said that China admitted responsibility but said it was an accident. That was met certainly with a few grumbles. Then there was obviously the Nord Stream 2 incident before then. So the Baltic really has been at the centre of this kind of cable-cutting frenzy that seems to be going on.

And it was just that those three incidents in two months really, I think, pushed members over the edge. How worried, George, are the sailors and officials you spoke with that this is going to keep happening?

Very much so. I mean, it's present. It's happened recently. I mean, it's worth bearing in mind as well this shadow fleet that Russia uses to kind of get around sanctions using kind of, they get old oil tankers and then disguise their ownership through the means that we discussed before. It's not just that they could kind of have spying equipment, for example, to kind of record

the positions of NATO ships and all the rest of it, it's not just that they could drag their anchors and rupture cables. It's also the environmental question, which is that a very old rusting tanker, perhaps not properly insured, could at any point just make a huge spillage in, you know, next to the coast of a NATO member. And it's basically left to them to deal up, to clean up and

At a cost of, one can't imagine, but at least hundreds of millions. So it's a real problem for the West. I don't think I've felt colder than standing on the deck of a ship in the Baltic at this time of year. How are the troops involved in Operation Baltic Century getting on?

Yeah, I was out there and it was absolutely perishing. It's really tough in January. You know, as I was speaking to German divers who were kind of actually they're trained mainly in mine clearance. So their job is mostly to defuse mines. But those skills are obviously transferable to trying to protect these underwater cables.

And, you know, they were saying that if you could dive in the Baltic, you could dive anywhere. It's so cold. There's variable depths. The seabed is also of different types. They said visibility is sometimes just sort of 10 centimetres down at the bottom. It's a pretty inhospitable place. So you've got divers looking for evidence and these NATO ships patrolling the Baltic. Is that giving NATO what it needs to justify more action against Russia?

Yeah, I think NATO countries have been aware of it for some time. But at the moment, they still, you know, it's a struggle to work out what to do. Because, you know, for example, the Eagle S, which was this ship that severed the S-Link 2 cable and actually prompted the first big response, which was from Finland, which kind of boarded it. Well, Finland is now in kind of legal troubles over, you know, from the...

owners of the ship but the ownership of the ship is itself really complicated you know it's flagged in the cook islands it's um owned in dubai it's kind of run from india and the whole kind of opacity of ship ownership structure is designed to kind of hide the identity of who is behind it so

you're shooting at really a target that you don't really know who you're going for. So what can NATO do about it? Well, they can't really retaliate. You know, they don't want to escalate with Russia and attacking an oil tank would amount to a declaration of war. But also the whole point is that these attacks are deniable. It's very hard to prove what has happened at the bottom, whether it's an accident, whether it's deliberate attacks.

So what NATO is kind of doing is trying to illuminate what's happening on the floor. That's why you're having these divers. That's why you're having these drones that can go down and take video. That's why they've got kind of sonar scanning equipment, which bounces frequencies down to the sea floor so that they can build a picture. Basically, so they can say to Russia, we see you. We know what you're doing down there. You can't get away with denying culpability. And

And that's the approach rather than a kind of full on military response. It feels like NATO are sort of locked in this shadow boxing match, not quite wanting to land a serious blow because they can't prove a piece of Russian aggression. But they're trying to push to the boundary of what they think they can risk.

Yeah, I mean, the Finns have basically said enough is enough. We don't buy your excuses. We don't think it's plausible that you were dragging an anchor for 60 miles along the seabed, which is why you saw the action that you did, which was on Boxing Day, actually, after the ship broke the Cape One Christmas Day. And they basically impounded the ship. So that speaks to the kind of growing impatience of those countries around the Baltic. You know, the more...

The more left field suggestions include why not just blockade the whole sea? Because now that Finland and Sweden are members of NATO, nine out of 10 of the countries that border the Baltic Sea are part of NATO. So it's been nicknamed the NATO lake, and it's a crucial waterway that Russia relies on to kind of trade with the rest of the world. So

It is very much in NATO's gift. They could do that, but again, it would amount to a declaration of war, so they can't go that far. So instead, they just have to kind of

intensely monitor the ships that are passing through to try and work out if they're up to kind of no good. And George, the UK is involved in this operation, but we've also seen these Russian ships moving through British waters. What's the government planning to do both to protect British interests, but also to support NATO allies against this threat?

Well, the UK's got a defence review coming up and I think this will be one area in which it wants to strengthen traditionally. The UK has kind of been a strong naval power and in submarines in particularly, but part of it is just trying to see what's happening on the seabed. And so they've already invested in this vessel, RFA Proteus, which kind of uses, which has got all the technology that I saw in the Baltic, similar technology to kind of

really illuminate what's happening right down there at the bottom of the sea. So I think you might see more tilt towards investing in this sort of stuff because they know it's a vulnerability and for the Russians it's a relatively cheap and deniable way of attacking the West. OK, George, thank you. George Grylls is the Times' defence correspondent. That's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. Do you like being educated on things that entertain but don't matter? Well, then you need to be listening to the podcast with Knox and Jamie. Every Wednesday, we put together an episode dedicated to delightful idiocy to give your brain a break from all the serious and important stuff.

Whether we're deep diving a classic movie, dissecting the true meanings behind the newest slang, or dunking on our own listeners for their bad takes or cringy stories, we always approach our topics with humor and just a little bit of side eye. And we end every episode with recommendations on all the best new movies, books, TV shows, or music. To find out more, just search up the podcast with Nox and Jamie wherever you listen to podcasts and prepare to make Wednesday your new favorite day of the week.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.