Following the suspected attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and growing concerns that Russia has mapped important Western underwater infrastructure throughout Europe, NATO has established a new facility focused on protecting undersea pipelines and data cables.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, NATO states’ defence ministers agreed on plans for a NATO maritime centre for the security of critical underwater infrastructure during a meeting in Brussels on Friday.
The facility will be situated at NATO’s naval headquarters in Northwood, near London, and will be in charge of developing a new surveillance system to monitor parts of the Atlantic as well as locations in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Black Sea.
Efforts to safeguard the West’s crucial underwater infrastructure follow the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines in September. Who was responsible for the pipeline destruction is unknown.
“The threat is evolving”, said Hans-Werner Wiermann, a former German three-star general, noting that NATO was driven to act after learning that Russian ships had mapped crucial infrastructure in the NATO alliance area.
He further said, “Russian ships are actively mapping our critical subsea infrastructure”.
“There are growing fears that Russia will target undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an attempt to disrupt Western life”, he told media at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
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