Cutting the Cord
Sabotage at Sea Comes in Many Forms
(Article originally published in Nov/Dec 2025 edition.)
Russia's land border with Europe extends 3,983 linear miles. If that sounds difficult to patrol, consider that the Baltic Sea comprises 180,000 square miles of shallow water.
That's bad news for the 35+ cables and pipelines carrying power, gas and data that crisscross its waters. At an average depth of only 180 feet, that valuable infrastructure is vulnerable to attack by the unlikeliest of weapons. Anchors.
Several anchor attacks have happened in the past two years. Russia with its shadow fleet and China, presumably coordinating with its ally, have been scraping away at these Baltic Sea assets, but always with plausible deniability. Indeed, that is the avowed doctrine of the Russian military.
As promulgated in 2013 by Valery Gerasimov in the Military-Industrial Courier, his goal was a 4:1 ratio of covert, non-military actions to overt, military measures, specifically suggesting destruction of civilian infrastructure. Further, Russia's 2022 Maritime Security Doctrine identifies the U.S. and NATO as strategic opponents, so it makes sense that Russia would strike with sabotage as tensions rise.
TWO EXAMPLES
On November 17, 2024, Yi Peng 3, a Chinese-flagged bulker with a Russian crew and a cargo of fertilizer, allegedly cut two cables after departing Ust-Luga, a Russian port. The two cables were the BCS East-West Interlink, an Internet connector between Sweden and Lithuania, and C-Lion1, the only direct data link between Finland and Germany.
Its Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder was turned off, violating the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Treaty. The anchor and hull showed damage consistent with lengthy dragging, noted the Wall Street Journal.
C-Lion1 took 11 days to repair, and by November 29, 2024, it was working again.
Then, on Christmas Day of 2024, the oil tanker Eagle S, flagged in the Cook Islands and under Indian management, left Ust-Luga with a cargo of gasoline. On its way to either Aliaga, Turkey or Port Said, Egypt, the ship's 39-year-old Georgian captain let a 100-ton anchor down. Under engine power, Eagle S allegedly dragged the anchor for about 60 miles (!) across the seabed of the Gulf of Finland, slicing through not only the 650-megawatt Estlink 2 power cable but four telecommunications cables as well – including C-Lion1.
This time, C-Lion1 was down for 12 days. As for Estlink 2, Estonian utilities saw their electricity costs more than double from €75.5/MWh to €184/MWh.
And what about Eagle S and Yi Peng 3 – did they face consequences?
Neither was held accountable.
The Helsinki District Court dismissed the charges brought against the captain of Eagle S, citing U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 97 and its insurmountable jurisdictional obstacles. In other words, the matter died on the vine due to formalism.
As for Yi Peng 3, the ship was held at the Kattegat Strait for about a month, then set sail after the Chinese government refused to allow Swedish authorities to conduct an investigation. "…I can note that China has not listened to our request that the prosecutor should be able to conduct a preliminary investigation onboard," said Maria Malmer Stenergard, the Swedish Foreign Minister. Thus, the matter ended.
Boris Pistorius, the German Defense Minister, did not mince words, calling Yi Peng 3's moves "sabotage" and suggesting that "nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed."
And that makes sense: Anchors don't drag themselves.
COUNTERMEASURES
The Baltic Sea has been a theater for dozens of similar incidents.
The Eagle S is credited with triggering NATO's launch of Operation Baltic Sentry, headquartered at the German naval station at Rostock. European Security & Defence magazine reported that Dutch, Belgian, French and German assets were assigned to this operation in January 2025 with the goal of deterring and surveilling Russian shadow fleet vessels and other hostile actors.
"We know something has happened," said Commodore Arjen Warnaar. "We're increasing our patrols. We're showing ourselves. We're monitoring basically everything here at the moment. That sends a clear message."
But it's not only ships that are being used to patrol the Baltic Sea.
In January 2025, NATO launched Operation Nordic Warden, which uses a purpose-built, automated artificial intelligence (AI) trained by U.S.-based Palantir to track suspicious ships as they draw near key areas, a U.K. press release announced. Nordic Warden relies on AIS data to quickly calculate risk and initiate responses over a huge area, deploying drones, aircraft or ships to respond to flagged maneuvers. Reaction times to detected incidents are down from about eight hours to just one hour, according to British Commodore Craig Raeburn – technological advantage taking shape as strategy.
That tracks with what experts believe. Estonia's International Centre for Defence and Security suggests that surveillance "…raises the likelihood that a malicious actor will be identified" and that a response "raises the likelihood that he will be intercepted."
By identifying and intercepting, the plausible deniability that these operations require as per the Gerasimov Doctrine is stripped away. Then, it becomes possible to assign direct blame to the state actor behind the sabotage.
Perhaps that risk is too great, even for a government like Russia's, which routinely flouts international law.
The Baltic States have largely focused on the two items that the aforementioned NATO operations are designed to address: identification and interception. Finland and Sweden have been affected by subsea cable-cutting, and they've increased the frequency of patrols. Lithuania signed a joint venture between its own military and Litgrid, the country's electrical grid operator, to increase cable security through information-sharing.
WELL-LIT PARKING LOT
Still, is there a point to all of this monitoring, detecting and data-gathering if there's no enforcement? Apparently, yes.
"For the last half year, we haven't had any incidents," Commodore Warnaar said recently. But Warnaar is also clear-eyed about mission limitations absent legal reform: "The hardest part is actually the legal part, and the coastal states in the Baltic have done a fantastic job to address this."
At the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) Summit in Tallinn on December 16, 2024, 12 countries announced they would demand proof of insurance from suspected "shadow fleet" vessels as per the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage. This obscure treaty will now trigger whenever such a vessel tries to pass through the English Channel, Danish Straits or the Gulf of Finland.
While any of these measures individually may not be a sufficient deterrent, it does appear that, in aggregate, the less permissive environment is fending off new sabotage in the same way that a well-lit parking lot tends to suffer fewer car thefts.
And that fits. Gerasimov would be delighted at the sheer chaos caused by cable-cuttings that are sabotage being papered over to look like "accidents." That anchor? It fell off the ship. The crew was just doing its best.
The confusion, fear and public attention stirred up by these sudden violent acts are part of the special sauce that makes them devastating. Russia thrives on the terror and the uncertainty. Opponents scramble drones, warships, fighters and artificial intelligences while the "shadow fleet" only needs an anchor to achieve its goal. The costs favor the saboteur.
COMPLICATED MEDICINES
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"Truth's words are simple to utter and justice needs no subtle explanations," said Euripides. "Injustice, however, being a sickness, requires complicated medicines."
When it comes to this Russian sickness, better complicated medicines than none at all.
The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.