Russian Interference in Baltic Sea Communications

‼️ After Lithuania reported increased GPS interference, Finland now confirms a rise in GPS and AIS disruptions in the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea this summer. The Finnish Coast Guard reports that Russia is actively jamming navigation signals, causing ships to lose GPS positioning and disrupting AIS data likely to conceal movements of sanctioned Russian oil shipments. These signal disruptions have increased notably during the warmer months, expanding west of the Hanko Peninsula. Sailors are warned not to rely solely on GPS and are advised to use radar, visual navigation, sea charts, and compasses especially near the Russian border to avoid dangerous situations.

Polish researchers have pinpointed the exact locations of Russia's GPS jamming operations in the Baltic Sea region, revealing a sophisticated electronic warfare campaign that has disrupted thousands of flights and ships since Ukraine's invasion began. Using triangulation from monitoring stations around Gdansk Bay, the team traced jamming signals to two key locations in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave - near the Okunevo antenna site and the port town of Baltiysk. Both areas house known electronic warfare units and military installations. The interference has evolved from simple signal blocking to more advanced "spoofing" - falsifying GPS readings to make vessels believe they're somewhere they're not. This has forced flight cancellations, airport closures, and ships to veer dangerously off course across the Baltic region. While eight European countries have formally complained to the UN about Russia's "hybrid warfare" tactics, researchers suggest the #jamming may primarily target drone navigation systems, with civilian disruption being collateral damage. The solution? A return to older navigation methods. Projects like Germany's R-Mode Baltic are deploying land-based beacon systems as #GPS alternatives, while countries from the UK to South Korea develop their own terrestrial #navigation backups. As one researcher noted: "People have gotten so used to satellite navigation" - but perhaps it's time to remember how to navigate without it.

Attacks on Europe’s offshore energy infrastructure are multiplying. Nordstream, Balticonnector, Estlink 2 … the list grows. Russian and Chinese ships drag anchors along the seabed to disrupt cables. Russian “fishing” vessels loiter for days above subsea cables ... NATO is rising to the challenge. They’ve set up a critical undersea infrastructure unit to pool satellite images of suspicious vessels. And have now launched “Baltic Sentry” to support surveillance with frigates, aircraft and drones. The aim is to intercept and escort away, possibly “board, impound or arrest” as Mark Rutte has said - or at least deny adversaries plausible deniability. Technology is key. Cables can now be fitted with acoustic sensing that enables them to hear abnormal things far away. Radar, sonar and hydrophones could be installed on offshore wind farms and substations to detect e.g. hostile drones and other unwanted activity. Wind farm developer OX2 has recently tested the relevant kit at a wind farm near Åland in Finland. It all works. And it significantly enhances our eyes and ears on suspicious activity - the “situational awareness” of what’s happening at sea. The next step is to work out which equipment should be installed to enhance the security of wind farms and cables - plus the costs and how to carry them. And to agree arrangements between energy operators and the authorities including on data-sharing. Some countries already require new wind farms to host sensors and cameras and share data. Happy co-existence between offshore energy and the military is not enough. Active collaboration is now required given the nature of the threats - and the huge importance of offshore wind and cables to Europe’s energy security. All sides will benefit. Energy assets get more secure. Ditto Europe’s seas and maritime space.

Estonian and Danish intelligence agencies warn that Russia's activity in the Baltic Sea is becoming increasingly dangerous and is turning into a direct threat to Europe. The Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center has released a report describing the growing threat from the Russian "shadow fleet" in the Baltic Sea. This refers to oil tankers without clear registration and warships that carry out provocations near the territories of NATO countries. Danish Director of Military Intelligence Thomas Ahrenkiel said that Russian warships deliberately collided with Danish vessels, pointed weapons at helicopters and jammed GPS signals, creating risks of accidents in strategically important straits between the Baltic and North Seas. After the outbreak of a full-scale war against Ukraine, the Baltic Sea became a key route for Russian oil exports, accounting for more than 60% of maritime deliveries. Therefore, control over the shadow fleet vessels is not only of security but also of economic importance: its restriction will reduce the Kremlin's profits and reduce the financing of the war. The Baltic Sea is becoming a deterrent to Russia's hybrid aggression. This requires decisive and coordinated action by European states, as it is about the security of the entire region.

https://lnkd.in/e9bS-3ji "Over the past decade and more, Russia has been able to cultivate its hybrid interference strategies almost with impunity due to lack of political willingness in European capitals to attribute and counter its hostile actions. This article tracks some of the main challenges that hybrid warfare currently presents in Europe, including a variety of methods deployed: non-physical attacks (including disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks, and prank calls to officials) and a myriad of physical incidents (including sabotage of private or public property and critical infrastructure, instrumentalized migration, property purchases in strategic locations, GPS jamming, and assassination plots). It argues that Nordic-Baltic regional coordination is crucial in responding to Russian gray zone aggression. European countries can only effectively counter the intensifying threat if they work together. Because of their long-standing exposure to Russian intimidation and interference, as well as already existing regional cooperation frameworks, Nordic and Baltic countries are well suited to develop a response blueprint that can be scaled up to the European level in the future."

The Underwater Battlespace We Can No Longer Ignore For most nations, seabed warfare is an emerging domain. For Russia, it is a mature capability—refined, resourced, and operational for decades. From deep-diving special-purpose submarines to dedicated GUGI units and an entire ecosystem of sub-sea engineering expertise, Russia commands more assets, platforms, and operational experience in the deep ocean than the rest of the world combined. This is not hyperbole; it’s a strategic reality that Western policymakers are only now starting to fully appreciate. At the same time, the last few years have shown us a pattern we can no longer dismiss as a coincidence. Nord Stream 2, gas pipelines, data cables in the Baltic, energy connectors in the North Sea—critical subsea infrastructure (CUI) has suffered “unexplained” damage, each incident wrapped in plausible deniability and geopolitical fog. None of these events has been directly attributed to Russia, but the methodology and strategic effect align perfectly with the principles of hybrid seabed warfare: ambiguity, paralysis, escalation control, and the silent erosion of maritime resilience. In an era where 97% of global communications and trillions in financial transactions depend on subsea cables, the ocean floor has become a contested battlespace. And while the West is scrambling to define a strategy, Russia already has a full playbook. This article will outline why seabed warfare is no longer a theoretical threat, and why our current level of preparedness is dangerously misaligned with the capabilities and intent demonstrated beneath the surface.

🚨 🚢 ⚓️ - New Recorded Future Insikt Group report! This research reveals that geopolitical tensions, limited repair capacity, and physical vulnerabilities are converging to sharply raise the threat profile for submarine cable infrastructure. Our global communications backbone is under an increasing strain that must be urgently addressed. Please read and share with your networks! ♦️ 44 publicly reported cable damages occurred globally from 2024 to 2025 — 30% of them in just two regions: the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan, both hotspots of great power tension. ♦️ Anchor dragging, often by Russia- and China-linked commercial vessels, has emerged as a low-cost, plausibly deniable tactic for cable sabotage. ♦️ Limited redundancy, chokepoint geography, and a global shortage of repair ships make many regions disproportionately vulnerable to outages, particularly West and Central Africa and isolated islands in the Pacific. ♦️ In some of the most impactful cases (for example, the Red Sea, South Africa, and West Africa), multiple cables were simultaneously disrupted, leaving countries without reliable alternatives or swift repair options. As hybrid warfare and gray zone conflict escalate, targeting subsea infrastructure offers adversaries a way to disrupt critical communications — including military coordination and financial transactions — without triggering kinetic escalation. Both Russia’s hybrid doctrine and China’s coercive posture on Taiwan have increasingly focused on undersea infrastructure. A few recommendations for the international community: 🔧 Strengthen public-private investment in cable resilience, including expanding repair fleet capacity. 🔍 Improve monitoring at cable chokepoints and landing stations, often the most accessible and fragile parts of the system 🗺️ Prioritize route diversity and redundancy in new deployments, and fast-track diplomatic clearance protocols for cable repair in disputed or conflict-prone waters. As cyber, kinetic, and infrastructure threats blur, submarine cables remain both a lifeline and a target. This report underscores the need for urgent, coordinated international action to defend the literal backbone of the internet. Blog: https://lnkd.in/dgRcadzm PDF: https://lnkd.in/dwpu9uRa

#Russia deliberately operates in a legal grey zone where cyberattacks are rarely treated as acts of aggression under international law unless they cause immediate physical destruction or casualties. As long as there are no visible victims, the response remains restrained. #Moscow understands this perfectly. And exploits it. At the Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum, Serhii Demediuk, Chairman of the Board at the Institute of Cyber Warfare Research, articulated something that should concern every cybersecurity professional and FIMI expert in the EU and the United States. Instead of a single spectacular strike, Russia applies what can be described as a “thousand cuts” strategy: persistent, accumulative, and often deniable cyber operations that gradually exhaust resilience, erode public trust, and test political red lines. #Europe has already experienced multiple examples of this approach. On the day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the KA-SAT/Viasat satellite network was disrupted in an attack publicly attributed to Russia and condemned by the #EU; the incident affected several EU member states and demonstrated how quickly civilian infrastructure can be collateral damage. In 2023, #Denmark’s energy sector reported coordinated intrusions affecting more than twenty energy companies, with investigations pointing to activity associated with the GRU-linked Sandworm group. In 2024, #Germany and #Czech Republic publicly attributed malicious cyber activities to APT28 (also linked to the Russian #GRU), warning that the same actor targeted government entities and critical infrastructure operators across Europe. What makes the current phase even more concerning is the evolution toward a “double strike” tactic. Cyber operations increasingly occur alongside synchronized information attacks. The technical disruption is paired with amplified narratives exaggerating scale and impact. This was designed to intimidate, create panic, and undermine confidence in institutions. Even when the technical damage is limited, the psychological and political effects can be far more significant. This fusion of #cyber operations and #information manipulation is not accidental; it is strategic. A more coordinated and assertive approach to attribution, consequences, and integrated cyber-information response is essential. Russia is not merely probing systems. It is probing resolve.

'The Swedish Navy's top officer believes that Russia may be using some of its "shadow fleet" tankers to spy on its neighbors in the Baltic Sea. If true, it would be an expansion of Russia's decades-old tradition of placing military surveillance equipment on fishing trawlers. In the mid-1960s, these over-equipped ships were so common that the U.S. gave them a name: "Auxiliary General Intelligence" vessels (AGIs). According to Rear Adm. Ewa Skoog Haslum, some of the less reputable Russia-linked tankers in the Baltic have been found to be carrying "antennas and masts that typically do not belong" to merchant vessels. These are the kinds of fittings that intelligence officers associate with Moscow's "hybrid operations," a common Russian practice of espionage and disruption. Her service also has evidence that these vessels are fitted out to pick up signals intelligence from their neighbors.' https://lnkd.in/gm5JBQbU

For decades, the GIUK Gap was a physical chokepoint. A stretch of ocean where submarines got tracked, signals were monitored, and deterrence was tangible. That same geography now sits at the center of something far less visible but equally strategic. A recent analysis from The Arctic Institute shows how Russia is pairing its military posture in the North Atlantic and Arctic with targeted information operations designed to shape perception across allied societies. The techniques look familiar for those who’ve worked in intelligence: • Persistent narratives framing NATO activity in the GIUK Gap as "provocative militarization," even as Russia expands its own undersea and Arctic capabilities. • Amplification of claims that Western nations are recklessly endangering fragile Arctic environments (often through state-linked outlets and proxy voices) while downplaying Russian activity. • Deliberate ambiguity around incidents involving undersea infrastructure and cables. The messaging is designed to sow doubt and delay attribution, fueling mistrust among allies. This isn't about persuasion in the classic sense. It's about the erosion of confidence and cohesion. In essence, modern chokepoints are no longer just geographic. They're cognitive (as well as digital, for those who’ve read my former pieces on digital chokepoints). If we keep defending sea lanes, satellites, and cables without equal attention to the narrative space and information integrity, we may be leaving ourselves exposed to systemic influence operations. The map is changing and our mental model needs to change as well. Worth reading: "Atlantic Chokepoint, Cognitive Front: Russian Influence Operations and the GIUK Gap" — The Arctic Institute https://lnkd.in/epdQYyug #Nationalsecurity #InformationWarfare #CognitiveSecurity #ArcticSecurity #Geopolitics #StrategicCompetition