The world’s critical undersea infrastructure is largely unguarded and its exact positions are available in the public domain, creating a potentially tempting target for the Kremlin. Western intelligence officials believe Russia’s efforts to monitor and build up technical capability to access this vast undersea infrastructure are expanding and are currently spread among a number of different branches of the country’s military and security services, including the Russian Navy and the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research (GUGI).

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began just over two and a half years ago, reports of suspicious Russian activity close to undersea cables have been mounting. This threat to underwater infrastructure is viewed as one of the many tools in a far broader Kremlin toolbox of hybrid warfare methods against the West.

In September 2024, CIA and MI6 chiefs accused Russia of engaging in a “reckless campaign of sabotage” across Europe. Alleged recent Russian attacks on communications systems have included disruption to the Global Positioning System (GPS) that affected thousands of civilian passenger flights in the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, and eastern Mediterranean regions.

Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en
Meanwhile, several days ago, information appeared that Russia may be planning to step up its sabotage campaign by damaging undersea Internet cables.

Moscow’s special services have been hard at work in Western countries. We have seen numerous examples of their operations in recent months: from attempts to send explosives via DHL, to hacking European satellites and transmitting Russian propaganda.

The recent activity and rhetoric of Kremlin officials suggests another special op may be in the works.

Back in September, US intelligence detected increased Russian military activity around key undersea cables. CNN’s sources suspected that Russia was planning to sabotage “critical communications infrastructure.”

Everything was silent for two months, but this week, several things happened in quick succession that should set off warning bells:

▪️Newsweek broke the story that a Russian spy ship has been “loitering” off the coasts of Norway for about a month. Naval analysts think the ship is likely trying to locate undersea cables.

▪️Nikolai Patrushev, key aide to Vladimir Putin, issued an unsubstantiated warning that US and UK had the capacity and were planning to attack undersea fiber optic cables.

▪️On Friday, an internal communique from the Russian Central Bank was leaked in the media. The document asks the CB’s subsidiaries to prepare for an exercise " disconnecting access to the foreign segment of the 'Internet' network in certain regions."

It increasingly looks like a classic Russian “false flag” operation is in the works. They pre-emptively blame Western countries for plotting to cut the cables, while making overt preparations for doing it themselves.