HELSINKI: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisa­tion said on Friday it would boost its presence in the Baltic Sea after the suspected sabotage this week of an undersea power cable and four internet lines, while alliance member Estonia launched a naval operation to guard a parallel electricity link.

On Thursday, Finland seized a ship carrying Russian oil on suspicion the vessel had caused an outage of the Estlink 2 undersea power cable linking it with Estonia and fibre optic lines, and on Friday said it had asked Nato for support.

Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for acts of sabotage after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to malfunction and accidents.

“We have agreed with Estonia, and we have also communicated to Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, that our wish is to have a stronger Nato presence,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb told a news conference.

Rutte said he had discussed with Stubb the Finnish-led investigation, expressing his support.

“Nato will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea,” Rutte wrote on social media platform X.

A Nato official declined to provide detail on specific deployments.

“At this point all I can say is that options for enhanced military presence are being prepared,” a senior European diplomat said.

Sweden’s coastguard said in a statement it had ramped up surveillance of ship traffic to protect critical undersea installations, deploying aircraft and vessels while coordinating with the Swedish navy and with other nations.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2024