Suspicious Russian manoeuvres in the Baltic: Poland deploys major resources

Last Wednesday, the Polish Prime Minister stated that the country’s army had to intervene to counter suspicious manoeuvres by a Russian vessel.

A Russian ship belonging to the Kremlin’s "ghost fleet" conducted “suspicious manoeuvres near an energy cable connecting Poland to Sweden". “Yesterday […] we observed a tanker, which was recently added to the list of ghost fleet vessels, carrying out suspicious manoeuvres” in the Baltic, just above the power cables owned by Polish company PSE, said Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk added on X (formerly Twitter): “After a swift intervention by our army, the ship headed back towards one of the Russian ports.” The incident reportedly took place outside Polish territorial waters, where a hydrographic vessel was mobilised, according to media outlet L’Indépendant.

A hybrid war

Already in 2024, several undersea cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged. And according to several analysts, these "incidents" form part of a “hybrid war” being waged by Moscow against the West. “Since Sweden and Finland joined the North Atlantic Alliance, the Baltic has become a key maritime area, where the greatest number of incidents occur, most often linked to cable ruptures, diversionary actions and sabotage,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz highlighted.

(MH with Manon Pierre – Source: L’Indépendant – Illustration: ©Unsplash)