Amid Russian undersea sabotage, Finland to host Baltic Sea Nato members' summit next week

Amid Russian sabotage of undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, Finland has announced it would host a summit of allies in the region next week.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb will next week hold a summit of fellow of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) in the Baltic Sea region.

In a statement on Wednesday (January 8), the Finnish presidency said that Stubb along with Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal will host the summit on January 14 at the presidential palace in Finnish capital Helsinki.

The presidency said Denmark’s PM Mette Frederiksen, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Latvia’s President Edgars Rinkevics, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda, Poland’s PM Donald Tusk, and Sweden’s PM Ulf Kristersson will attend the summit. The statement said that Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen will also attend the summit.

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The summit will address the question of security of the Baltic Sea region, especially measures required to secure the critical underwater infrastructure, with a focus on strengthening of Nato’s presence in the Baltic Sea and responding to the threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet, according to the Finnish presidency.

The announcement of the summit comes after two high-profile incidents of damage to critical undersea cables. It is believed that the damage was done deliberately at the behest of Russia, which is waging a subversion campaign against Europe. While Russia had long been waging a shadow war against the West, it intensified subversive activities following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It is believed that Russia uses ‘shadow fleet’ of ships to damage critical undersea cables as part of its campaign against the West. Such cables include communication cables, power cables, etc.

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Of the two recent instances, the first was in November when a Chinese ship damaged two undersea fibre-optic data cables in the Baltic Sea — the first cable was damaged between Sweden and Lithuania and the second was damaged between Germany and Finland. The ship is believed to be operating at the behest of Russia.

In the second instance, a ship flying a flag of Cook Islands, damaged the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia and four communication cables, including cables connecting Finland and Germany that was damaged in the November instance as well.

The ship involved in the second case, oil tanker Eagle S, has been detained by Finland.