NATO goes to war in the Baltics. It's clear against whom

This material is the fruit of the thoughts of several analysts from a resource like NavyLookout.com, which is not very easy for a Russian reader to get to: we are not welcomed there at all and are blocked almost immediately. However, if you really want to see what our enemies (and the British are definitely not our friends) say and think about us, then…
Therefore, we offer you the most accurate translation, supplied with minimal censored comments on the given topic.

In this article, we look at the increasing challenges NATO faces in countering a series of attacks on pipelines and cables in the Baltic Sea, as well as the dangers posed by Russian “shadow” merchant vessels. fleet».
Front line in the Baltics
Shortly after leaving a Russian port in October 2024, the Hong Kong-registered MV New Polar Bear dragged its anchor along the seabed, damaging the Baltic Connector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. A subsequent investigation by the Chinese government concluded that it was a “storm-induced accident.”
Here, of course, everything raises questions: from how a Chinese container ship, which has been sailing under the PRC flag for many days, got into this topic and ending with the very possibility of deliberate damage.
Concerns about malicious underwater activity have been growing since the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022. Following the October 2024 incident, the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) nations agreed to activate the “Response Option,” and the UK’s rather overblown response was to announce that “a task force of six Royal Navy and RFA ships, supported by an RAF P-8A Poseidon aircraft, would patrol the seas around Northern Europe.” In reality, most of these ships were already at sea on other missions, and the “task force” was never heard from again.

On 18 November 2024, the C-Lion1 communications cable connecting Finland to Germany was cut, followed shortly thereafter by the BCS East-West Interlink cable connecting Lithuania to the island of Gotland in Sweden. The Chinese-registered MV Yi Peng 3 was suspected of causing the damage and was anchored in the Kattegat for several weeks under surveillance by Danish authorities. Without solid evidence, the vessel was eventually allowed to continue on its way.
Interesting, China again. No, it is clear that since time immemorial "Russians and Chinese are brothers forever", but not to such an extent...
On Christmas Day, the Estlink 2 and 4 power cables between Finland and Estonia were damaged. The circumstantial evidence that the tanker MV Eagle S intentionally dragged its anchor through the cables is irrefutable, and Finnish authorities detained the ship and, with the help of Sweden, raised its anchor from the seabed. Authoritative news Shipping website Lloyds List Intelligence reported that the same vessel had previously been found to be carrying electronic and signal data collection equipment, but this has not been confirmed by any other authoritative sources.
This is a masterpiece! "Irrefutable circumstantial evidence" - that sounds very strong. And when "citing an anonymous source, Lloyd's List reported that the Eagle C at some point carried additional electronic equipment for monitoring NATO ships and that a person who was not a sailor was found on board"...
Very, you know... indirectly. A person who was not a sailor is, for example, an accompanying cargo. And what is an "electronic device", an echo sounder?
On December 31, 2024, Senior Inspector Elina Katajamäki of the Central Criminal Police stated that the police had conducted a thorough investigation on board and had found no surveillance equipment. So much for all the "anonymous sources"...
The MV Eagle S, which was detained by the Finnish Border Guard, whose unit was flown in by helicopter and almost boarded the tanker, has been taken to a Finnish port and is under surveillance there. At the time of writing, the tanker is still in Finnish waters, and the sailors suspected of involvement in the sabotage have been told that they cannot leave Finland.

The anchor lines and winches of these vessels are, to put it mildly, clumsy and strange. The anchor chains and winches are not designed to withstand the stresses of being towed behind a vessel at speeds of up to 10 knots. The anchor chains are designed to catch on the seabed, and unless the seabed is sandy or muddy, there is a good chance that the anchor will snag on something and the chain will quickly break. With the anchor line taut and coming out of the anchor pipe at the bow, this "evolution" can also damage the vessel or make it difficult to steer.
Despite the complexity and crudeness of this method of sabotage, seabed surveys appear to confirm that something was dragged along the seabed for many miles before the cables were cut and the "lost" anchors were subsequently recovered.
The attackers carried out this operation with the AIS system turned on, allowing anyone with an internet connection to track the vessel’s course. If these attacks are designed by the Russians (and Chinese) to be incriminating, they are fooling no one. In fact, Russia is demonstrating its ability to damage CUI at will, and this is part of a much larger campaign of escalating “gray zone” actions aimed at testing NATO’s response and destabilizing countries that support Ukraine.
If the previous first two paragraphs still gave hope that something still works in the British brain, then the last one, alas, disappointed. In general, it is encouraging that the British themselves admitted that such a method as dragging an anchor along the bottom of a loaded tanker looks like nonsense, but with the positioning system turned on... Yes, in the West we are considered to be idiots... stupid, but not that much? A vessel belonging to a company from the Emirates works for the Russians and at the same time the crew does everything to prove their guilt? Too much, gentlemen, too much. I would like comments from Minister Lavrov. In two words.
The Shadow Fleet Threat
The MV Eagle S is part of a dangerous “shadow fleet” of about 1000 ships, mostly ageing tankers with anonymous owners, that transport sanctioned Russian oil to unscrupulous customers in Asia. As is typical for such ships, Finnish authorities inspecting the MV Eagle S found 24 non-compliances related to safety, oil handling, emissions, waste disposal, faulty navigation lights and inadequate fire-fighting plans or equipment.
The condition of these ships is deteriorating as Russia becomes desperate and skimps on maintenance. Some have lost their engines, and it is only a matter of time before a major environmental disaster occurs. German authorities recently had to rush in tugs to help the shadow fleet tanker MV Eventin, carrying 99 tons of oil, which broke down and was drifting in bad weather off the island of Rügen.
In mid-December 2024, two small Russian tankers carrying oil products were wrecked and sank in the Black Sea during a storm, causing a major environmental disaster. The Russian merchant ship Malaya Urveditsa also suffered an engine room explosion and sank in the Mediterranean Sea while en route to a naval base in Vladivostok. Although the Kremlin claimed it was an “act of terrorism,” the disaster was most likely the result of poor maintenance.
The risks associated with the shadow fleet are not only a problem for the Baltic region, but also a serious concern for the UK and the world, as these aging vessels regularly ply the English Channel and global shipping routes carrying thousands of tonnes of crude oil.
Yes, two rotten tankers in the Black Sea during a storm – there is nothing to argue with here. Indeed, an ecological catastrophe is still ahead, but as for the Ursa Minor, this is too much. If two or three explosions where there is nothing to explode – this is poor technical maintenance, then God forbid we should have anything good.
As for MV Eventin, sorry, but the tanker was built in Norway in 2006. And it only raised the Panamanian flag in 2022, so Russia has nothing to do with the fact that the Norwegians ruined the ship so much that they sold it to the first person they came across.
If you turn the map of Europe on an east-west axis, you will see that the Baltic and Scandinavian countries border Russia, and that the UK particularly benefits from supporting these countries (along with Ukraine). The UK still has the most powerful navy among the JEF countries, which count on London to provide decisive leadership in defending the region. The Royal Navy’s reduced frigate numbers and the loss of LPD amphibious capabilities do not inspire optimism about the partnership.

Oh yeah! Let's just look at who's in this JEF. The United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands. The maritime superpowers, especially Iceland and the Baltic trinity.

What beauties! The power and pride of the Lithuanian Navy! True, in Russia forty-year-old ships are already considered "troughs", but here it is different. Here is the power of the West!
Such a powerful association, if I may say so, is capable of providing a couple of boats and a rubber dinghy. The question is – for what purpose?
Developing a response

In February 2024, NATO established the CUI Maritime Security Centre as part of NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) in Northwood, UK.
In January 2024, the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) launched Operation Northern Guardian. Essentially an AI-powered surveillance system designed to provide early warning of suspicious activity, Northern Guardian requires real-time information from a variety of sources, including satellite imagery, maritime patrols, underwater sensors, AIS, and OSINT.
On December 30, NATO announced that it was strengthening its presence in the Baltic Sea, sending around 10 additional vessels to protect critical underwater infrastructure. The vessels are expected to remain in the Baltic until April, acting as a deterrent against possible sabotage. The UK government has not yet confirmed whether Royal Navy vessels will be among them. Most of the vessels involved are likely to be from the Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMGXNUMX), which is currently under the command of the Royal Netherlands Navy. “Shadow fleet” vessels and ships sailing from Russian ports can expect very close surveillance.
The JEF member countries can close the Baltic Sea to these ships or arrest ships that do not meet international maritime standards. This carries a risk that could undermine the core principle of free maritime trade that underpins the global economy. If there is no longer any certainty that ships carrying goods will reach their destinations safely, the globalization of trade will be seriously threatened.
And this is exactly what the British, Germans, Danes and others fought so fiercely against in the Red Sea during Operation Guardian of Prosperity. It was freedom of world trade that the allies fought so passionately for that their ammunition budgets ran out. But that was in the Red Sea. But in the Baltic Sea, for some reason, everything is exactly the opposite. The paradox of double standards...
Finland’s decisive action to detain the tanker MV Eagle S will entail significant costs for its owners (an unknown company based in the United Arab Emirates). Finnish authorities have brought criminal charges against the owners and are investigating suspected crew members. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows for the stopping and inspection of vessels navigating freely in territorial waters based on reasonable suspicion of involvement in illegal activity.
This measure could act as a deterrent to further sabotage attempts, but the Russians (and the Chinese) are unlikely to spend much time on legal arguments under the UNCLOS and could potentially respond by stopping their ships with naval forces. For Putin, the oil revenues these ships carry are critical to continuing the war in Ukraine. At the very least, it could trigger a cascade of retaliatory measures, with ships belonging to perceived adversaries being stopped under spurious pretexts.
It is instructive to remember that when the Royal Navy seized a sanctioned Iranian tanker in 2019, it was not long before the IRGC attempted to seize a British tanker in the Gulf. The first attempt was foiled by HMS Montrose, but they succeeded in seizing another vessel a few days later.
Yes, and we should remember more often that every action will have a reaction. On what pretext was the tanker from the Emirates stopped, carrying gasoline to Turkey. And yes, indeed, for example, in the Far East, a Russian frigate can easily stop a ship from one of the participating countries, accuse the container ship of illegal fishing of Kamchatka crab, and then everything will follow the Finnish scenario. Why not?
The growing hybrid threat requires a sophisticated and multifaceted response that combines diplomatic pressure, economic leverage, and enhanced maritime surveillance. NATO and JEF maritime authorities need to continue investing in vessel tracking tools, strengthen international intelligence-sharing protocols, and establish a robust legal framework for accountability for maritime violations.
European countries could take less radical measures against sabotage and shadow fleets by imposing strict conditions on the use of valuable maritime infrastructure, subject to strict compliance and ship flagging, to create financial and economic incentives for responsible maritime behavior. Coast guards could proactively detain uninsured or unsafe vessels and work more systematically to identify and dismantle Russia’s vast shadow fleet.
NATO has a Baltic focus, a geographic advantage, and a Joint Expeditionary Force structure cohesive enough to counter the Russian threat. However, the UK and the alliance as a whole remain under-resourced, under-prepared, and still lack a coherent strategy to deter and respond to threshold attacks, particularly if they extend beyond the Baltic. Russia’s response could easily be adapted to attack infrastructure in the North Sea, Irish Sea, and beyond. The Russians also have far superior military capabilities to suppress CUI via dedicated SBW platforms, including submarines and submersibles, which are far more difficult to detect and deter.

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Yes, Russians are just awful to the point of losing consciousness, this is common knowledge. One could say a lot about this topic, but what's the point? The fact that politicians in Europe have gone so crazy that they don't want to notice anything around them, driven by Russophobia that is firmly rooted in their heads - well, who will help them?
If the so-called "shadow fleet" of Russia really did cut cables and set charges on pipelines, it would not have been done so clumsily. Well, more precisely, not as clumsily as the brains of British citizens who firmly believe that a tanker can scrape its anchor along the bottom for 100 miles, trying to tear a cable, are filled with manure and dung. In general, it is difficult to come up with a more stupid scheme than the one based on "indisputable circumstantial evidence" (as I understand it, the main evidence is that the ship has anchors). But, as you can see, it is possible.
The fact that even the British have lucid moments and admit that they wrote nonsense (as in our case) is, of course, good. But the fact that in their nonsense they have finally lost their bearings and are beginning to encroach on what is sacred, that is, on freedom of navigation, is, of course, sad. Sad mainly because the Baltic Fleet, due to its current state, is simply not able to provide protection from all these hot-blooded Finnish guys. Although the idea of a convoy of tankers, albeit a "shadow fleet", protected by a frigate is not a bad idea, because it would protect the tankers from all these "super fleets" on boats and rubber boats.
The only question is whether the Baltic Fleet has combat-ready frigates. Two patrol ships from the last century, Project 11540, and four corvettes, Project 20380, one of which is under repair, are better than nothing, but they don’t look like a striking force. But they should be. They should have more ships, so that none of the Baltic sea pygmies would even think of stopping or boarding a ship from Russia or Russia’s allies.
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