Sweden to participate in Baltic Sea mission to safeguard undersea cables
nder Gillenea/AFP/Getty Images/TNS
Sweden will join a NATO mission in the Baltic Sea to protect undersea cables, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced at a defense conference on Sunday, News.Az citing the MiamiHerald.
The new NATO member is to contribute three warships and a surveillance aircraft to the operation, Kristersson said.
NATO is stepping up its efforts to protect infrastructure in the Baltic Sea after several underwater cables were recently damaged, in what allies suspect could be acts of sabotage.
A total of 10 ships are to take part in the new operation to protect the cables, according to information shared with dpa.
There was initially no official information about the operation from the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Kristersson refrained from making any specific accusations, according to the Swedish news agency TT, but said the fact that strange things kept happening in the Baltic Sea meant hostile intentions could not be ruled out.
Sweden and its neighbors would not tolerate this any longer, he added. A submarine power cable running between Finland and Estonia and several other communication cables were damaged in the Gulf of Finland at the end of December.
Finnish investigators suspect that the oil tanker Eagle S, sailing under the flag of the Cook Islands, caused the damage intentionally and are therefore investigating possible sabotage.
The European Union believes the Eagle S belongs to Russia's "shadow fleet" of ships used to circumvent sanctions imposed as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, for example when transporting oil.
Two other submarine cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged in mid-November, one running between Finland and Germany and the other between Sweden and Lithuania
The new NATO member is to contribute three warships and a surveillance aircraft to the operation, Kristersson said.
NATO is stepping up its efforts to protect infrastructure in the Baltic Sea after several underwater cables were recently damaged, in what allies suspect could be acts of sabotage.
A total of 10 ships are to take part in the new operation to protect the cables, according to information shared with dpa.
There was initially no official information about the operation from the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Kristersson refrained from making any specific accusations, according to the Swedish news agency TT, but said the fact that strange things kept happening in the Baltic Sea meant hostile intentions could not be ruled out.
Sweden and its neighbors would not tolerate this any longer, he added. A submarine power cable running between Finland and Estonia and several other communication cables were damaged in the Gulf of Finland at the end of December.
Finnish investigators suspect that the oil tanker Eagle S, sailing under the flag of the Cook Islands, caused the damage intentionally and are therefore investigating possible sabotage.
The European Union believes the Eagle S belongs to Russia's "shadow fleet" of ships used to circumvent sanctions imposed as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, for example when transporting oil.
Two other submarine cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged in mid-November, one running between Finland and Germany and the other between Sweden and Lithuania
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