The sabotage of the Russian Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines —which have led to almost simultaneous leaks in the Baltic Sea and a new escalation in gas prices— have put on the table the vulnerability of decisive European infrastructures in the face of hybrid warfare.
The European Union and NATO, which are promoting an investigation and have promised a forceful response if it is confirmed that it was a deliberate attack, have begun to take steps to strengthen security around their energy assets.
All the countries with interests in the area have raised the level of alert and sent ships to monitor the relevant routes for their key infrastructures.
Germany - where there is concern about the protection of liquefied gas terminals being built on the coast, as well as submarine and telecommunications cables - has deployed the Navy to investigate the incident.
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Brussels and the Atlantic Alliance do not directly attribute to Russia what they have defined as "sabotage".
In an increasingly hot geostrategic context, with the intensification of the war that the Kremlin maintains in Ukraine, the escalation of nuclear threats from Vladimir Putin against the West and a runaway energy crisis, community sources and analysts point to Moscow as the most likely responsible .
The Kremlin has called the accusations "predictably and predictably stupid" and has also called for an investigation.
The incident in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, particularly symbolic in the Kremlin's energy war against the EU, puts other non-energy facilities under the spotlight, which can also be the target of possible attacks: from telecommunications cables to pipes that transport fuel passing through tunnels Of transport.
The alleged sabotage, which has released methane into the atmosphere and is causing an environmental disaster, has once again shaken the European security architecture in the face of new hybrid threats.
The attack on infrastructure is one of the usual movements of the Kremlin, which uses other levers of destabilization: from cyberattacks to propaganda, through the management of migratory flows.
"These incidents are not a coincidence and they affect us all," EU Foreign Policy High Representative Josep Borrell said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Any deliberate disruption of Europe's energy infrastructure is absolutely unacceptable and will be met with a strong and united response," he insisted.
The Commission and the Twenty-seven reached an agreement before the summer on security measures in key infrastructures.
Brussels already proposed two years ago to tighten the regulations on its protection.
Now, in light of events, it may be necessary to go "further", Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders has pointed out.
volatile markets
The Energy Ministers of the Twenty-seven will deal with the matter tomorrow, Friday, in an Energy Council initially scheduled to discuss the emergency package of measures with which to tackle the energy crisis, which will foreseeably include some type of intervention in the markets.
The incidents recorded on Tuesday do not affect gas supply in Europe, because the gas pipelines involved are not in use, but they have once again shaken particularly hot and volatile markets in a scenario in which countries are rushing to fill their reserves. for the winter and shore up your supply.
The Atlantic Alliance has also emphasized the vulnerability of key infrastructures.
Its secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, discussed the protection of strategic facilities with Danish Defense Minister Morten Bodskov on Wednesday, who has admitted cause for concern.
"Russia has a significant military presence in the Baltic Sea region and we hope they will continue to rattle their sabers," said the Dane.
Copenhagen is going to strengthen security measures around energy infrastructure.
US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said EU countries and liquefied natural gas carriers must be vigilant in the wake of "apparent sabotage."
“Everyone needs to be on high alert,” she has said in an interview at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned in Berlin that critical infrastructure in Europe is now a target.
Investigations into the explosions - one of them, on Monday, would be equivalent to a detonation of 100 kilos of TNT - can take weeks.
"If the investigations confirm that Russia is behind these attacks, it would mean an escalation in tensions between Russia and Europe," says Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at the
Bruegel economic
think tank .
This would mean that the conflict has already entered another phase, passing from the economic war that had been carried out until now "to a hybrid war, in which the physical infrastructure ends up blown up," she adds in an email. .
Currently, the greatest risk for Europe is that these attacks occur on other key infrastructures that supply gas to the continent, such as those in Norway.
The Oslo government plans to deploy its army to the oil and gas facilities, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store has announced.
Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned oil company, has also raised the alert level at all of its facilities – at offices, supply locations, helicopter bases, land-based facilities and ships – and has established a contingency team for its processing plant. Of gas.
Oslo has detected "abnormally high" drone activity near its oil and gas infrastructure on the continental shelf, the government has acknowledged.
In July,
Securing vital infrastructure, such as telecommunications cables or gas pipelines, which are built to withstand accidents but do not always take into account the possibility of sabotage or attack, can lead to logistical difficulties.
The Nord Stream gas pipelines, for example, run for some 1,250 kilometers between the Russian and German coasts and cross the territorial waters of several countries.
Tagliapetra stresses that Europe must try to protect all its physical infrastructure, but must not forget about cyber risks.
British espionage has also warned about it.
Russia, Lindy Cameron, head of the UK's National Security Center, has said, could start launching more aggressive cyberattacks against the West to make up for its military defeats in the face of Ukraine's counteroffensive.
The expert assured at a conference in London that Russia has staged "the most sustained and intense cyber campaign on record" and that Western organizations will have to maintain a state of "high alert" in the long term.
The German press has reported that the US intelligence services (CIA) informed the federal government weeks ago of possible attacks on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The Executive's spokesman avoided confirming it, but also denying it, on Wednesday: "As a matter of principle, we do not comment on possible warnings from the intelligence services, whether they have occurred or not."
Germany has been very cautious when qualifying what happened.
Only Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has referred to pipeline leaks as "likely sabotage."
Senior commanders in the German army had already expressed concern about the possibility of sabotage in the network of power pipelines and submarine cables in the Baltic and North Seas, according to the German weekly
Der Spiegel
.
A spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior assured that, at the moment, there are no "concrete indications" of a threat to German energy infrastructures, but acknowledged that there is an "abstract threat situation" for all key infrastructures and especially energy ones.
That assessment had already been made before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he added.
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