Tensions in the region have escalated since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with European countries regularly expressing concern over "hybrid attacks" blamed on Russia.
Berlin said this week that a Russian cargo ship recently fired signal flares at a German military helicopter, another sign of the mounting tensions in the Baltic Sea where all of the bordering countries except Russia are now NATO members.
Earlier on, concerns were reignited after two underwater telecommunications cables were severed in Swedish territorial waters of the Baltic Sea in mid-November.
In October 2023, a gas pipeline and an underwater cable linking Finland, Sweden and Estonia were also damaged.
The string of incidents since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine shows that "there is indeed an escalation" in the Baltic Sea, said Wojciech Lorenz, international security expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, PISM.
However, "it's one piece of a (bigger) puzzle, where Russia is in the process of intensifying" its actions, whether in Ukraine with threats of nuclear war or hybrid operations and attempts to destabilise other countries, he added.
Meanwhile, Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said that "Russia does not at all like the point of view that would have the Baltic Sea be a NATO 'lake',"
"Physical sabotage is becoming more and more likely because it is simply easy for the aggressor to do it," said Moritz Brake, expert at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies at the University of Bonn.
"We may live for many years, even decades, in a situation of hybrid conflict like this, and therefore we have to find an effective response," Lorenz argued.
He said the creation of a maritime police mission, as recently proposed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, could be such a step.
As the first step towards credible deterrence NATO has beefed up its naval presence in the region and is seeking to develop its surveillance capabilities, but monitoring everything that happens on the seabed is near impossible.
(mo)
Source: AFP