The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has agreed to establish a center to protect critical underwater infrastructure such as oil pipelines, citing risks of attack by Russia.
The Maritime Center for the Security of Undersea Critical Infrastructure will be set up in London “to bring together different allies to share information, to share best practices and to be able to react if something abnormal happens,” NATO’s secretary general said, Jens Stoltenberg, at a press conference. Friday after a meeting of coalition defense ministers in Brussels.
While not explicitly blaming Russia for last year’s apparent sabotage of Nord Stream, NATO has warned of a forceful response against attacks on allies’ critical maritime assets.
“So we know that Russia has the ability to map, but also potentially to carry out actions against critical infrastructure… These are gas pipelines, oil pipelines, but not least thousands of kilometers of Internet cables, which is [sic] so critical for our modern societies: for financial transactions, for communications, and this is in the North Sea, in the Baltic Sea, but across the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean Sea,” Stoltenberg said.
In addition to pooling government efforts, the center also seeks to boost cooperation with the private sector to safeguard underwater infrastructure.
Most of the infrastructure “is owned and operated by the private sector and they also have a lot of capabilities, to protect, to repair, etc.,” Stoltenberg said.
The UK, which will host the center at NATO Maritime Command in Northwood, said in a press release: “The center will lead to better coordination between allies and with industry to share knowledge, creating an image of threat and how best to meet the challenges, including best practice and innovative technologies, such as the UK’s two Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ships (MROS), the first of which, HMS Proteus , must sail shortly.”
NATO launched the so-called Submarine Critical Infrastructure Coordination Cell earlier this year.
To be set up at NATO headquarters in Brussels, the cell will “enable better coordination between key military and civilian actors and with industry, on an issue that is vital to our security,” Hans-Werner Wiermann, former Director General of NATO’s International Staff. , said in a NATO press release on February 15.
This announcement said that “the sabotage of Nord Stream has exposed the vulnerability of underwater power conduits and communication cables.”
“In response, NATO allies have significantly increased their military presence around key infrastructure, including ships and patrol aircraft,” he added. “In January, NATO and the EU also created a joint task force to protect critical infrastructure.”
Nord Stream attack
Nine months since owner Nord Stream AG first reported damage to the Baltic Sea gas conveyor belt, it is still unclear who was behind the attack and Moscow has claimed it had nothing to do with the ‘target of an asset owned by the majority of the Russian state.
The prosecutor overseeing a Swedish investigation had acknowledged that the “detonations” that affected the two Nord Stream gas pipelines, which are partly in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark, could have been orchestrated by a government.
“We have a pretty clear picture at the crime scene of who committed it,” Mats Ljungqvist told Russian state news agency TASS in comments on Stockholm’s April 10 update on the investigation. “It cannot be ruled out that there are some individuals who may have been the perpetrators. However, our main advantage is of course that there is a government behind it, directly or indirectly.”
The Danish Energy Agency said on March 29, citing the Ministry of Defense, that local authorities had recovered an empty smoke buoy near pipeline two in the presence of a representative of Nord Stream AG.
Russia has pressed both countries, as well as Germany, to allow it to participate in missions investigating the attack.
Russia “intended to persist in its effort to compel the FRG authorities [Federal Republic of Germany]Denmark and Sweden to conduct an objective and comprehensive investigation into the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines with the mandatory inclusion of Russia,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said on May 25.
The operator is 51% owned by the Russian majority state-owned Gazprom PJSC. Germany’s PEGI/E.ON and Wintershall Dea AG own 15.5 percent each. Dutch NV Nederlandse Gasunie and French ENGIE each have nine percent.
Nord Stream, which stretches a total of 760.56 miles (1,224 kilometers) between exporter Russia and destination Germany, has a combined annual capacity of about 1.94 trillion cubic feet (55 billion cubic meters cubic) of gas, according to Nord Stream AG’s website. This capacity is “enough to meet the energy demand of more than 26 million European households,” the site says.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said on February 8, citing an “anonymous source with direct knowledge of operational planning,” that the US had orchestrated the sabotage with the help of the Norwegian navy.
He said Washington saw the infrastructure as a means for Russia to hold European allies hostage to energy exports.
In the theory he posted on Substack.com, Hersh said the attack authorized by President Joe Biden was executed through remotely detonated explosives planted in June 2022 “under the cover of an exercise of the widely publicized mid-summer NATO known as BALTOPS 22”.
The White House and Pentagon dismissed the claims in comments to TASS on the same day Hersh published the article.
NATO has not officially blamed Russia or the US, which is now one of NATO’s 31 allies. Finland, which borders Russia, became the latest member this year after being alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“All information currently available indicates that this is the result of deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage,” he said in a statement on September 29, 2022, days after the attack. “These leaks are causing risks to shipping and substantial environmental damage.”
“We are supporting ongoing investigations to determine the source of the damage,” NATO added.
Stoppage of gas supply
The attack came months after Nord Stream resumed supplies to Europe after shutting down what the operator said was maintenance, according to a July 21, 2022 statement from Nord Stream AG.
TASS said that on May 19, Nord Stream remains closed: “Pumping through the Nord Stream gas pipeline was completely suspended.”
Amid President Vladimir Putin’s war-fighting trade sanctions, Russia lost its place as the EU’s top natural gas exporter in 2022, although this year it still accounted for 15.3 percent of the EU’s imports. region, according to a bulletin updated on May 3 from the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
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