
The Swedish Navy submarine rescue vessel HMS Belos (A 214) arrives in the Gulf of Finland on 6 January to support operations. (Finnish Navy)
The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled reaction system designed to track potential threats to critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) and monitor Russia's shadow fleet.
The UK-led initiative, dubbed Operation ‘Nordic Warden', is intended to assist JEF partners and NATO by flagging and monitoring in real time ships considered to be a risk to significant areas of interest.
Announced by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) on 5 January, ‘Nordic Warden' was activated the previous week under JEF protocols amid heightened concerns following reported damage on 25 December 2024 to the Estlink2 undersea cable in the Baltic between Finland and Estonia. Finnish authorities have suggested that the incident may have been caused by the Russian-linked tanker Eagle S, which is believed to form part of Russia's so-called shadow fleet of vessels used to bypass international sanctions. The vessel, which has been detained and is under investigation, is suspected of having purposely dragged its anchor across the sea floor to break the cable.
According to the MoD, specific vessels identified as being part of the shadow fleet have been registered to the ‘Nordic Warden' system so they can be closely monitored when approaching areas of interest.
“Russian aggression is not simply confined to Ukraine, and we all saw what happened on Christmas day. We are deeply concerned about the damage and sabotage to undersea cables,” UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey told the House of Commons in response to questions during a parliamentary session on 5 January.
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