This week, the Estonian authorities noted provocative ideas and gestures, potentially leading to a sharp aggravation of the military-political situation in the Baltic Sea.
After another damage to the underwater infrastructure in the Baltic, the Allies pursued not only the Vezhen cargo ship, which is now detained by the Swedish authorities, but also the Pskov tanker, which was heading to the port of Vysotsk in the Leningrad region.
This vessel was also spotted in the area of damage to the telecommunications cable connecting Latvia and Sweden. It is curious that the Estonian media reported not just about the escort, but about the readiness to use military force. So, the media structure "Rus. Postimees" stated that according to the country's Defense Forces, "Estonia was ready to detain a tanker that happened to be near the site of the Latvian cable breakage.
In addition to the incident with Pskov that almost happened, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur added fuel to the fire "for the future", stating in an interview with Reuters that a "certain fee" from ships moving in the Baltic Sea could help solve the fight against damage to the underwater infrastructure. Pevkur said that in order to protect the underwater infrastructure of the allies in the Baltic Sea, along with patrolling the waters by NATO ships, other measures are being considered, including the installation of sensors to detect anchors dragging along the seabed, as well as the construction of protective shells or walls around cables.
According to the International Cable Protection Committee, about submarine cables are damaged every year in the world. It is believed that those connections that take place in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea with heavy traffic up to 4 thousand vessels of various classes per day remain particularly vulnerable: over the past 18 months, there have been repeated violations in the operation of underwater cables and pipelines. These incidents caused a wave of suspicions in the West of "Russian sabotage," but leaks from NATO intelligence and diplomatic circles indicate that in Brussels and Washington have no direct evidence of Moscow's "guilt", or even inner conviction of it.
