As of: February 29, 2024, 6:54 a.m
By: Christiane Kühl
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Press
Split
Despite its limited access to the sea, Russia is deliberately causing unrest in the Baltic Sea with pinpricks.
NATO bordering states also fear acts of sabotage on critical undersea infrastructure.
Sweden's path to NATO is clear following the approval of the Hungarian parliament on Monday.
The alliance will finally become the dominant power in the Baltic Sea.
In addition to Sweden, almost only members of the military alliance - and Russia - lie on its coast.
But despite its limited access to the Baltic Sea at the northeasternmost tip of the sea and via the exclave in Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania, Moscow is managing to keep the residents' nervousness high - through targeted pinpricks and disruptions.
Sweden's accession will make this more difficult for Moscow, but not impossible.
At the end of January, for example, a Russian military aircraft appeared off the Baltic Sea island of Rügen, so that two Eurofighters from the Bundeswehr Air Force took off from the Rostock-Laage air base.
The Russian aircraft, which was traveling without a transponder signal, was accompanied “for a short time before it turned back east,” the Air Force said.
NATO patrols also repeatedly encounter Russian fighter jets without transponders off the coast of the Baltics.
In addition, cases of targeted disruptions to the GPS satellite navigation system, known as GPS jamming,
have been increasing for weeks in the Baltic Sea region from the Baltic States to eastern Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .
The signals transmitted to Earth by GPS satellites are disturbed by another transmitter on the ground, which has a serious impact on shipping and air traffic.
Here, too, the neighbors' suspicion falls on Moscow.
Noticeable disruptions in GPS navigation in the Baltic Sea region
At the beginning of February there were two large-scale GPS disruptions between Poland, Western Pomerania and Sweden.
Since mid-February, the data website www.gpsjam.org has recorded consistently high disruption rates in Estonia and off its coast.
The disruptions there began just days after Estonia's foreign intelligence service warned in its latest annual report that Russia would significantly increase the number of its troops along the NATO border in the coming years.
Coincidence?
At the same time, Estonia's Prime Minister Kaja Kallas suddenly found herself on Russia's wanted list, allegedly because of her actions against Soviet-era monuments.
But above all, Kallas is one of the most staunch European supporters of Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia.
“Someone is causing this, and we believe it is Russia,” said General Martin Herem, commander of the Estonian armed forces, in Tallinn in January.
Moscow is probably testing the ability to disrupt in war, Herem said.
The Estonian secret service assumes that Russia would need around three to five years to rebuild its military apparatus after the end of the Ukraine war to such an extent that it would pose a direct threat to NATO.
Until then, Russian President Vladimir Putin could expand his policy of hybrid warfare to the Baltic Sea region - through disruptions and provocations in the sea or actions along the eastern border of Finland and the three Baltic states.
According to information from Helsinki, Russia has brought thousands of refugees from countries such as Yemen, Somalia and Syria to the border with Finland, which has been completely closed since November.
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Sweden's accession to NATO makes the Baltic Sea safer
In this situation, Sweden's approaching accession is definitely an advantage.
It makes the alliance “stronger and safer,” wrote NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on
the armed forces are modern and well-equipped.
With its geographical location midway between the Far North and the Baltics, Sweden is ideally positioned to bring troops and supplies to the Baltic Sea region.
The
The Swedish island of Gotland is located just 330 kilometers northwest of Kaliningrad.
It is strategically located as an outpost for the defense of the Baltics - but is also vulnerable, for example to Russian missiles from the exclave.
Swedish Jas 39 Gripen E fighter jet over Gotland: The Baltic Sea will become safer with the country's accession.
But Russia remains a threat.
© Henrik Montgomery/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP
US security expert John R. Deni from the US Army War College warns: “The Baltic Sea is not a NATO sea - especially not as long as the Kremlin destabilizes the region through hybrid activities and Russia maintains a massive, nuclear-armed military capability in Kaliningrad. “The allies had limited capabilities and even more limited capacities in the Baltic Sea region.
Russia is targeting Western undersea infrastructure
Russia's navy is underfunded and neither large nor powerful in the Baltic Sea region, writes Deni.
But there is one exception: Russia has specifically maintained the “capability for undersea activities, such as cutting communications cables or energy connections between the Baltic states and the rest of the region.
In fact, Russia is already actively mapping undersea infrastructure.”
The still-unexplained explosions of the Nordstream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September 2022 were a wake-up call;
the residents increased their patrols.
But in October 2023, Finland and Sweden discovered suspicious damage to a submarine cable to Estonia.
A Chinese ship came under suspicion because its dragging anchor may have severed at least one of the cables - whether accidentally or deliberately is unclear.
At the time, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned of the vulnerability of the “spaghetti bowl of cables, wires and other infrastructure on the seabed.”
Sweden will soon be able to contribute to joint protection of this infrastructure within the NATO framework.