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Russia may try to sabotage its network of undersea cables and other critical infrastructure, giving it a strategic advantage over the West, said David Cattler, NATO intelligence and security officer.
“There are grave concerns that Russia may be targeting undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an attempt to disrupt the functioning of the West and gain an advantage over countries providing support to Ukraine,” Cattler told reporters.
“Russia’s activity in this area is the largest in years,” he added.
According to NATO, the underwater connections that provide Internet communications are essential to the operation of the global economy. “In total, about $10 trillion of transactions pass through them every day, so this cable is truly a keystone of the economy,” said Cattler.
He warned that NATO’s adversaries realized the strategic advantages they could gain by targeting the internet, energy and financial systems.
“Russia is actively mapping allied critical infrastructure both on land and on the seabed,” the NATO official said, adding that allies closely monitor Russian ships equipped with equipment to detect electronic or acoustic signals from the seabed.
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