Were the attacks on Nord Stream’s gas pipelines just the opening salvo in an increasingly openly waged hybrid war against European critical infrastructure? Fears are mounting that Russia will try to disrupt Western societies with sabotage actions. In this way, the country would undermine support for Ukraine as military setbacks for the Kremlin pile up, partly thanks to Western arms supplies.
Read also Attack on Nord Stream remains without a clear fingerprint
Western naval ships kept a close eye on a Russian ship this weekend. The Akademik Boris Petrov left Kaliningrad on Monday, bound for the Atlantic coastal region of Brazil, officially for scientific research. However, the Petrov is suspected to be mainly engaged in intelligence work, like the Russian research vessel Jantar. The Jantar, equipped with sonar and mini-submarines, has been frequently spotted in recent years near submarine data cables, including off the Irish coast – where many (data) cables run that connect Europe to North America.
Originally the Petrov was supposed to sail through the Channel, but last week the ship suddenly shifted its course northwards to slow down near Norwegian oil fields, a blogger who specializes in Russian ship movements reported.
On Friday, it then sailed south of the Shetland Islands, which had suffered phone and data disruptions two days earlier after a major fiber optic cable to mainland Scotland was damaged. Café-goers turned out to be unable to withdraw their drink bill at closing time on Wednesday evening, and many residents did, according to the Scottish Daily Express the next day shopping on credit.
A few days earlier, a cable linking the Scottish archipelago to the Faroer, further northwest, broke, fueling speculation about possible sabotage. The BBC reports that both cable breaks are believed to be due to careless fishing vessels, according to Faeroese Telecom. The Petrov sailed further up the Atlantic on Sunday, avoiding sensitive British waters around the Hebrides, but the passage of the ship in the wake of the Shetlands cable break suggests that the ship was out to deliver a message.
‘Vandalism’
And then there was the cable break in Aix-en-Provence in southern France, just north of Marseille, which disrupted data traffic between Europe, Asia and the United States for some time on Wednesday. Marseille is an important hub for undersea internet connections to Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The breach disrupted the data traffic that runs through three of those cables.
Read also Undersea internet cables are also vulnerable to sabotage
CEO Jay Chaudhry of the cloud security company Zscaler, which manages the affected cable, spoke of “vandalism” in a LinkedIn message. Photos that the French internet provider Free posted on Twitter, https://twitter.com/Free_1337/status/1582714844658036737. The police are investigating the vandalism.
Also in April, several fiber optic cables were cut in France. At the time, this mainly caused internet disruptions within France itself.
And internet cables aren’t the only vulnerable potential targets. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre warned on Thursday that cyber attacks pose a “serious and serious threat” to the oil and gas industry. A number of incidents in which a total of seven Russians were arrested in the previous weeks for taking images of Norwegian energy installations and airports using drones was one of the reasons for that comment. Norway is the world’s third-largest gas exporter and is playing an increasingly important role in European gas supply, as EU countries hardly purchase any more gas from Russia.
‘Symbolic attacks’
On Thursday, the European Commission presented proposals to quickly better protect critical infrastructure of EU countries against physical and cyber attacks. The Commission focuses on energy, digital infrastructure, transport and space. European Commissioner Ylva Johansson announced a new investigation into the protection of submarine data cables. To monitor this, she wants to seek more cooperation with NATO.
In its own investigative report, the European Parliament noted in June that the responsibility for the security of such cables is divided among too many authorities and jurisdictions. The authors said it was unlikely that an attack on data cables could cut Europe off the internet, as there are many alternative connections available. Such an attack could also be interpreted as an act of war and thus lead to escalation. But “symbolic attacks on cable connections are to be expected,” the report said.
