NATO allies foil [alleged] Russian subsea cable sabotage plot [?]
Deep in Arctic waters near the remote Svalbard archipelago this spring, NATO allies caught Russian subs training to unleash a secret weapon designed to disable critical undersea cables without leaving any fingerprints. | The clandestine Russian operation, described to Reuters by two Western officials, was carried out by Moscow's GUGI undersea warfare directorate, which used deep-sea submersibles to simulate the deployment of the sophisticated and destructive technology. ● A joint operation involving Britain, Norway and the United States tracked and confronted the Russian vessels at sea, said the two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. The vessels were prevented from completing their exercise and eventually left the area. [...] Cables no thicker than a garden hose, lying on the seabed or buried just below, are critical to global internet connectivity and financial transactions. Their economic and strategic importance has made them targets in past conflicts, including in the First and Second World Wars, when they were critical to delivering orders by telegraph or telephone. ● Two 1,400 km subsea fiber-optic cables linking Svalbard to mainland Norway lie as deep as 2,700 metres below the sea's surface. They carry vast amounts of satellite data downloaded at the SvalSat satellite ground station, the world's largest and part of NASA's Near Space Network.
■ US, NATO allies foil Russian subsea cable sabotage plot (New York Post)
■ Norway seizes Russian Arctic science vessel at Kiev’s request (09/03/26)