成人快手

Shortly after midday local time on Christmas Day 2024, workers at the Finnish electricity company Fingrid noticed the main undersea electricity cable linking Finland with Estonia was damaged, significantly reducing Estonia鈥檚 power supply.

That evening, Fingrid鈥檚 network operations manager Arto Pahkin was quoted by Finland鈥檚 national broadcaster as saying: 鈥淲e have several lines of investigation, from sabotage to a technical fault, and nothing has been ruled out yet. At least two vessels have been moving near the cable at the time of the disturbance.鈥�

Hours later, a Finnish coast guard crew boarded the Russian ship Eagle S and steered it into Finnish waters. It was suspected of deliberately damaging the main power cable, Estlink 2.

The EU says the Cook Islands-registered ship is in fact part of "Russia's shadow fleet". It is suspected that the ageing tanker is used to carry embargoed Russian oil products.

Finnish police believe the Eagle S may have dragged its anchor along the seabed. An anchor was reportedly retrieved from along the route of the Eagle S, in depths of up to 80m (262ft), while photos taken since the incident showed the vessel missing its port side anchor. The Finnish police said they had nine suspects in a criminal investigation into the cable damage.

The damage to the 105-mile long (170km) Estlink 2 cable marks the latest in a series of incidents in which underwater cables in the Baltic region have been either damaged or severed completely since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

Following the Estlink 2 incident, Nato pledged to enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea, while Estonia sent a patrol ship to protect its Estlink 1 undersea power cable. The the failure of the undersea cable was the "latest in a series of suspected attacks on critical infrastructure鈥�.

Around 600 undersea cables carry electricity and information across vast oceans and seas. Coming ashore often at discreet, secret locations, all 870,000 miles (1.4m km) of them connect us. The majority are data cables, responsible for almost all of our internet traffic.

Analysts say there is always the possibility of accidental damage or human error, but the frequency of these incidents begs the question: how exposed are these undersea cables to sabotage?

Why the West is worried

It hardly needs saying, but relations right now between Russia and most of Western Europe are close to rock bottom.

They have been strained for years, after events including the Kremlin-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine and Russia鈥檚 occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In 2022, the West was united in outrage when 200,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine, triggering three years of war and an estimated million people killed or wounded between both sides.

Nato believes Russia is also waging another war, an undeclared one, something called "hybrid warfare" and that the target is Western Europe itself, with the aim of punishing or deterring Western nations from continuing their military support for Ukraine.

Hybrid warfare, also called 鈥済rey zone鈥� or 鈥渟ub-threshold鈥� warfare, is when a hostile state carries out an anonymous, deniable attack, usually in highly suspicious circumstances. It will be enough to harm their opponent, especially their infrastructure assets, but stop short of being an attributable act of war.

鈥淒eep-diving submarines can sever cables at depths which make repairs extremely difficult,鈥� says Dr Sidharth Kaushal, senior research fellow in sea power at the Whitehall-based Royal United Services Institute (Rusi). 鈥淭hey can also tap sensitive undersea cables.鈥�

鈥淚n a conflict with Nato鈥�, says Dr Kaushal, 鈥渄amage to infrastructure at sea along with the targeting of infrastructure ashore would be a key part of Russia鈥檚 overall war effort, aimed at gradually eroding popular support in the West鈥�.

"Plausible deniability鈥�

Other examples of suspected hybrid warfare attacks are the series of parcel fires targeting courier companies in the UK, Germany and Poland last year. Polish prosecutors said the incidents were dry runs aimed at sabotaging flights to the US and Canada.

Russia denies being behind acts of sabotage, but it is suspected to have been behind other attacks on warehouses and railway networks in EU member states, including in Sweden and in the Czech Republic.

These events are leading some Western governments to conclude there is a possibility Russia鈥檚 military intelligence agency may have embarked on a systematic campaign of anonymous, covert attacks on those countries helping Ukraine.

The threat has been taken seriously enough that Nato and the EU set up the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in 2017, based in Helsinki.

Dr Camino Kavanagh, visiting senior fellow with the Department of War Studies at King鈥檚 College London, says states may be drawn to this type of warfare because 鈥渢here's so much possibility of plausible deniability鈥�.

A lot of the focus now for countries such as the UK is on 鈥渄enying that deniability, from an operational perspective鈥�. For subsea infrastructure, this requires a strong understanding of what is happening in its own waters, in order to be able to identify suspicious activity.

鈥淭hat grey zone activity is something that is very, very difficult to respond to, but I think given the past few incidents, states are getting better,鈥� says Dr Kavanagh.

What are Russia鈥檚 undersea capabilities?

The Russian military has what Rusi鈥檚 Dr Kaushal calls 鈥渜uite a tiered structure鈥�.

In more shallow waters, he says, it tends to fall to Spetsnaz (Special Forces), the GRU (Military Intelligence) and the Russian Navy. But the task of deep-sea intelligence gathering and sabotage operations is undertaken primarily by the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI) which answers directly to the defence ministry and President Putin himself.

The GUGI, says Dr Kaushal, uses surface ships for surveillance and intelligence gathering, such as mapping the location of offshore wind farms or the points at which cables come ashore. But for deep sea operations he says they use 鈥渕other ships鈥� in the form of former nuclear ballistic missile and cruise missile submarines like the Belgorod.

鈥淭he Russians鈥�, he adds, 鈥渉ave a diverse suite of capabilities including titanium-hulled submarines, that can operate at depths of thousands of metres and which are equipped with manipulative arms鈥�. These three-man crews are usually highly experienced former naval officers who undergo training every bit as rigorous as those of cosmonauts.

At depths like those it is extremely challenging, even for the US Navy, to know exactly what is being placed on the seabed or what these deep-sea submersibles are up to.

Ultimately, potential sabotage to cables should be seen 鈥渁s not just an isolated phenomenon鈥� but as part of 鈥淩ussia's much more holistic programme of targeting communications infrastructure and critical infrastructure overall鈥�, according to Keir Giles, Russia expert at Chatham House and author of Who Will Defend Europe?

Russia鈥檚 focus on subsea cables and telecoms is 鈥減art of their programme of ensuring information superiority - which can also mean information interdiction". This is because if they want to cut off communities in a particular part of the world from information, other than what they are receiving from Russia, 鈥渢hat is seen as a very important objective because of how important it was in the seizure of Crimea鈥�.

Loitering over infrastructure

Certainly the authorities in Finland are not alone in their suspicions regarding Russia and subsea cable infrastructure.

In November 2024 Russian surveillance ship, the Yantar, was spotted 鈥渓oitering over UK critical undersea infrastructure鈥�, according to the Defence Secretary, John Healey.

In January 2025 it apparently happened again, with the Royal Navy monitoring the Yantar, which the Ministry of Defence said was being used 鈥渇or gathering intelligence and mapping the UK鈥檚 underwater infrastructure鈥�. Healey described this incident as 鈥渁nother example of growing Russian aggression鈥�.

The UK has around 60 undersea cables that come ashore at various points along its coastline, with particular concentrations around East Anglia and the South-West of England.

If there were an assault of any scale on the UK鈥檚 subsea infrastructure, it would probably be accompanied by other challenges to the country's systems, Mr Giles says.

The Russian Embassy in London described the UK鈥檚 claims regarding the Yantar as "completely groundless鈥�.

It alleged there was 鈥渁 surge in anti-Russian hysteria鈥�, which it said was being used by the UK and its allies 鈥渢o deliberately escalate tensions in the Baltic and North Sea regions鈥�.

Na茂ve trust

This year Britain鈥檚 Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which scrutinises the structures for government decision-making on national security, launched an inquiry into how vulnerable the UK is to undersea cable attacks.

鈥淭he Russians鈥� says the author and expert on Russia, Edward Lucas, 鈥渉ave probably already planted their underwater drones on the seabed, waiting for orders which may or may not come, to carry out an attack on cables and pipelines. Their surveillance ship, the Yantar, has been doing God-knows-what on the seabed for years鈥�.

The whole global network of undersea cables and pipelines, adds Lucas, was built on a na茂ve basis of trust.

"We never thought it would become a target of a hostile state but now we are reaping the harvest of decades of complacency. Our only hope is deterrence: showing the Russians that the cost to them of harming our subsea infrastructure would be too painful for them."

Dr Kavanagh says the UK has some resilience built into its infrastructure, because 鈥渞epairs can actually happen very, very quickly鈥�. Also, the design of subsea cables has, at least recently, been based on the idea 鈥渢hat they're going to break at some stage, so you need to prepare鈥�.

Mr Giles describes the response of Western countries to recognising the challenge as 鈥渧ery belated鈥�. But he says cutting individual cables would not have the amount of impact that it would have done when Russia first started looking at doing this.

This is because having multiple cables that connect the same countries using varied routes and ensuring that the repair ecosystem is resilient, are now part of the design, according to Dr Kavanagh.

She says: 鈥淚t's actually quite a relief to see that a lot of countries are now focused on understanding their own vulnerabilities in terms of resilience, working more and more closely with industry."

A wake-up call

These incidents, despite Russian denials of any involvement, have served as a wake-up call to European governments that these critical lifelines are under-protected, even if it would be physically impossible to protect them all, at every depth.

Mr Giles says: 鈥淭he threat has always been there. It's just that in the current environment, the threat actors feel more emboldened to actually test and probe and see what will work.鈥�

The hybrid warfare also serves as a learning function for Russia: 鈥淭hey see what the impact is, they also see what the response of the target country is, the capacity for investigating, prosecuting, et cetera.鈥�

Longer term, the deep sea capability that Russia possesses gives the option, in the almost unthinkable event of war, to do very serious damage to Europe鈥檚 economies and the daily lives of its citizens.

鈥淎nd that's not just about subsea cables, that is about all of the other ways in which Russia can reach out at an enormous distance to affect people in the homeland,鈥� adds Mr Giles.

鈥淚t is the sabotage attacks through proxies. It is cyber attacks. It is mass ransomware. It is putting the incendiary devices on airliners. And it is eventually the potential for missile strikes to come in from thousands of kilometres away with no war and no warning, because that is how Russia conducts business.鈥�

How the West handles the threat of sabotage of undersea cables is just one of the many fronts on which it is attempting to deal with Vladimir Putin鈥檚 Russia.