Belgium: NATO has established a new centre focused on protecting undersea pipelines and data cables following the apparent attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and as concerns mount that Russia has mapped vital Western underwater infrastructure around Europe.

The defence ministers of NATO members approved plans for a NATO “maritime centre for the security of critical underwater infrastructure” at a meeting in Brussels, NATO’s Secretary General Mr. Jens Stoltenberg stated.

The centre will be based at NATO’s naval headquarters in Northwood, near London, and, among other things, will be responsible for creating a new surveillance system to monitor parts of the Atlantic as well as areas in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea.

“The threat is developing,” former German three-star general Mr. Hans-Werner Wiermann remarked, adding that NATO was motivated to act following information that Russian ships had mapped critical infrastructure in the NATO alliance area.

“Russian ships have actively mapped our critical undersea infrastructure. There are heightened concerns that Russia may target undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an effort to disrupt Western life,” Mr. Wiermann told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

According to Mr. Wiermann, the new NATO centre would bring NATO members, allies, and the private sector together to help “improve information sharing about evolving risks and threats”.

“There’s no way that we can have a NATO presence along with these thousands of kilometres of undersea infrastructure,” Mr. Stoltenberg told reporters after chairing the meeting.

“But we can be better at collecting intelligence, sharing information, and connecting the dots because, also in the private sector, there is a lot of information” about ship movements and maritime surveillance,” the Secretary General added.

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