Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs A Russian radar used to direct weapons at a target tracked a NATO patrol aircraft protecting undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea on Wednesday, the French military said, denouncing “intimidation” from Moscow.Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment.Why It MattersRussia is intensifying its activity against NATO countries in the Baltic Sea, a region far from the front lines of Ukraine but dominated by NATO members. The area is sometimes dubbed a “NATO lake,” but Russia bases its Baltic Sea naval fleet in its Kaliningrad exclave, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.Alarm bells have been ringing across the alliance over Russian hybrid attacks in the Baltic, including on vital undersea infrastructure such as cables. Unseen but crucial, undersea cables prop up internet services and communications, as well as many other aspects of daily life often taken for granted.
File photo: Crew members aboard a French Navy Atlantique 2 surveillance plane patrolling January 23, 2025 watch an onboard monitor showing a ship on the Baltic Sea.
File photo: Crew members aboard a French Navy Atlantique 2 surveillance plane patrolling January 23, 2025 watch an onboard monitor showing a ship on the Baltic Sea.
AP Photo/John Leicester
According to NATO, around 99 percent of the world’s data runs through undersea cables, but these are vulnerable to attack, in what is known as hybrid warfare. Earlier this year, the alliance launched Baltic Sentry, an initiative crafted to protect undersea infrastructure through ship and maritime patrol aircraft monitoring.What To KnowFrance’s military said on Wednesday that one of its ATL2 maritime patrol aircraft was “illuminated” with a fire control radar as the French aircraft monitored “critical undersea infrastructure in international waters.”A fire control radar feeds information back about where a potential target is, so that weapons systems can fire at it accurately.Paris’s armed forces said Russia was attempting to “intimidate” their personnel, and followed a pattern of “unnecessarily aggressive actions.”In January, France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said a French maritime patrol aircraft had been “illuminated by the fire control radar of an S-400 ground-to-air defense system” while flying in international airspace over the Baltic Sea.Russia’s S-400 air defense system is one of Moscow’s most advanced, and has been used by the Russian military in Ukraine.Several cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea in recent months, including a power cable and several telecommunications lines on December 25 and two undersea cables, connecting Lithuania to Sweden and Finland to Germany, the previous month. A number of these incidents have been linked by officials to suspected sabotage.Swedish authorities said in February that they had detected another broken cable close to the island of Gotland.Nikolai Patrushev, a high-profile Kremlin aide, said earlier this month that Moscow would “not allow NATO to encroach its national interests in the Baltic Region, despite the active efforts of its newly admitted member states.”Sweden became the newest member of the alliance in March 2024, less than a year after Finland became a NATO member.These states are playing a “dangerous game,” Patrushev said, according to remarks reported by Russian state media.What People Are SayingThe French military said on Wednesday that this “intimidation is part of unnecessarily aggressive actions hindering freedom of navigation.”France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said earlier this year after a similar incident that “this aggressive Russian action is not acceptable.”What Happens NextNATO officials expect hybrid attacks to continue in the Baltic Sea, not least as the U.S. steers away from its European allies and attempts an apparent rapprochement with Russia. The Baltic will remain a keen area of interest for NATO’s continental members, and efforts to secure critical infrastructure will continue.
