RUSSIAN civilian and military vessels have been detected mapping critical infrastructure targets in the Baltic Sea and North Sea, reveals an investigation carried out by the public broadcasting companies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
MOT, the team of investigative journalists at YLE, on Wednesday reported that suspicious vessels have been detected at least in the territorial waters of Denmark and Norway.
The Nordic broadcasting companies examined the vessels’ movements using location data and radio communications, discovering that the vessels appear to be interested in targets such as gas pipelines, data communication cables, and especially offshore wind farms and their transmission cables.
Finnish Minister of Defence Antti Kaikkonen (Centre) told YLE that Finland has stepped up the monitoring of critical infrastructure already before the report. While he declined to comment on whether such intelligence gathering activities have been detected in the country, he added that such activities cannot be ruled out.
“The Nord Stream gas pipeline’s explosion is a practical example of this kind of sabotage being possible,” he stated to the Finnish public broadcasting company.
“The defence administration is naturally monitoring all activities in our nearby regions, including sea areas. We have a very solid understanding of them,” he assured. “For operational reasons, we can’t comment on this in too much detail. I’d say that we’re awake.”
Russia is seeking to obtain information that would enable it to sabotage electricity transmission in north-western Europe, according to experts. Tapio Frantti, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Jyväskylä, viewed in an interview with the broadcasting service that such information gathering can be regarded as part of intelligence activities related to cyber and hybrid campaigns.
While the information enables the planning of strikes that seek to paralyse electricity production, the effects of such a strike on a single wind farm would likely be limited.
“Our energy production is fairly dispersed when it comes to power plants, and the situation wouldn’t be catastrophic if some wind farm areas experienced a blackout and their electricity transmission was interrupted,” said Frantti.
Stopping all data communications, for example, would require a massive operation that effectively cuts all cables running along the seabed.
“If you cut a single cable, our data communication systems would continue working – albeit at significantly slower rates than if everything was intact,” he explained.
Kaikkonen offered a similar assessment: “We can’t protect cable that’s found in Finland and in our seas. If someone wants to cause a disturbance, I’m sure there’s a way to do that. But we have wind power capacity widely across Finland. That means that if a cable is cut, our society will manage.”
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
