NATO is deploying eyes in the sky and on the Baltic Sea to protect cables and pipelines that stitch together the nine countries with shores on Baltic waters

Rüdiger Strempel reflects on Finland’s special connection with HELCOM and the organisation’s regional efforts to protect the Baltic Sea

OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian police said on Friday they had arrested a Norwegian ship with an all-Russian crew on suspicion of involvement in causing damage to a fibre optic cable in the Baltic Sea. The arrest took place at the request of Latvian authorities, the police in the northern Norwegian city of Tromsoe said.

Shipping firms may need to pay a fee to use the Baltic Sea, one of the world's busiest shipping routes, in order to cover the high costs of protecting undersea cables, Estonia's defence minister said on Wednesday following a spate of breaches.

After a series of suspected undersea cable cuttings, NATO has launched a new surveillance and deterrence mission to protect critical infrastructure under the Baltic Sea.

An undersea data cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged early on January 26, the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Baltic Sea in which critical seabed energy and communications lines are believed to have been severed by ships traveling to or from Russian ports.

Russia has condemned the Western alliance for ramping up its naval presence in the so-called 'NATO lake' after alleged sabotage by Moscow-linked vessels.

Sweden has opened a preliminary investigation into suspected aggravated “sabotage” and ordered the detention of a vessel in the Baltic Sea suspected of damaging an underwater fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland earlier that day.

The incident is the latest in a series of cases of cables being damaged in the Baltic Sea, amid heightened tensions between Russia and the West since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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The NATO military alliance is ramping up efforts to protect undersea cables in the region amid growing concerns of Russian sabotage and spying. View on euronews