Undersea ‘hybrid warfare’ threatens security of 1bn, Nato commander warns

The security of nearly 1 billion people across Europe and North America is under threat from Russian attempts to target the extensive vulnerabilities of underwater infrastructure including windfarms, pipelines and power cables, a Nato commander has warned.

The comments come after two incidents of suspected sabotage on gas pipelines in the Baltic in the last 18 months – first on Nord Stream 1 and 2 in September 2022, followed by the Balticconnector in October last year.

Maleterre, a submariner who said he had himself spent “more than 1,000 days under the sea”, said the environment had changed dramatically since much of the current infrastructure was first developed by the private sector, leaving it extremely vulnerable.

A lot of nations – Norway, Sweden, Denmark as well – have developed drones, sensors, UUVs [unmanned underwater vehicles] to be able to detect very rapidly [something] suspicious or something going wrong.”

Photograph: Finnish Border Guard/LEHT/SIPA/ShutterstockUsing artificial intelligence software, Marcom can detect and follow suspicious activity at sea, such as ships switching off their automatic identification system (AIS) to prevent them from being traced or loitering in a particular area.

“And when we talk about aggression, we think about Russia obviously,” added Maleterre, who said Sweden’s membership in particular brought submarines, mine warfare ships, special forces and fast, powerful boats.