The meeting, co-organized by Finland and Estonia, will focus on enhancing NATO's presence in the Baltic Sea and responding to risks posed by Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, a group of tankers allegedly used for sanction evasion and espionage.
A fleet of up to 10 NATO vessels will guard the infrastructure under the Baltic Sea until April, the Finnish broadcaster YLE reported on Jan. 7 after several cables were cut in suspected sabotage.
The U.K-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) has set up a tracking system to alert allies if a ship poses a threat to undersea cable infrastructure and track Russia's shadow fleet of tankers, London said on Jan. 7.
The Helsinki District Court has ruled to keep the oil tanker — suspected of belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet" — under seizure, despite an appeal from the ship's owner.
The damaged cable is one of several recent incidents in the Baltic Sea under investigation as possible acts of sabotage.
The main suspect is 40-year-old Dieter S., a former member of Russian proxy forces in Ukraine who the prosecutors said took pictures of military facilities and planned railway sabotage.
Ukrainian partisans in Russia set fire to two locomotive trains on Dec. 30 destined for occupied regions of Ukraine, according to a Telegram post from Petro Andryushchenko, an advisor to the mayor of the Russian-occupied Mariupol.
Four facilities housing telecommunication equipment for the illegal operator Phoenix, used by Russian forces, were destroyed in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) reported on Dec. 29.
"The appearance of North Korean troops dressed in Russian uniforms or Iranian proxies on the borders of NATO countries is quite realistic if Russia is not stopped now. The North Korean military is already fighting in Europe. Who could have thought of this before?" Andriy Yermak said.
The Estlink 2, an undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia, was seriously damaged on Christmas Day. Authorities are investigating the incident as a possible act of sabotage.
The office was storing "humanitarian aid" for Russia's front-line military personnel, according to United Russia representative Vladimir Zhgilyov.
Russian ice hockey player Maxim Sergeyev was convicted by a Polish court on Dec. 16 on charges of espionage and sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
The source said that the aim of the operation was to disrupt a supply line used to transport fuel from Crimea to the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia.
Russia’s security services detained a Russian-German citizen for allegedly preparing a sabotage plot against railways, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Dec. 10.
An Atesh operative burned down a relay cabinet near the village of Chekhov in Moscow Oblast, disrupting Russian supply lines, the group alleged.
The suspect reportedly carried out reconnaissance missions, photographing and recording potential targets he intended to destroy with explosives or fire, Romanian prosecurors allege.
Data from maritime tracking group MarineTraffic shows the Yi Peng 3, traveling from Russia to Egypt, passed near the Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German cables on Nov. 17 and Nov. 18, the dates the cables were damaged.
Michal Koudelka, the director of the Czech Security Information Service, said on Nov. 18 that Russia was behind a flurry of bomb threats made against schools in Czechia and Slovakia in recent months.
Telecom cables linking two Nordic countries with Germany and Lithuania were cut on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, raising suspicion of sabotage, various media outlets reported on Nov. 18.
The Atesh partisan group sabotaged a key railway in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, disabling electrical equipment and causing disruptions to Russia's military supply chain, the group claimed on Nov. 16.
State Border Guard spokesperson Andrii Demchenko confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that a Russian sabotage group planted a Russian flag near the border in Ukraine's Chernihiv Oblast, but said that the event occurred in the grey zone and Russian troops did not launch a major offensive in the region.
Russia may be behind the dispatches of flammable packages via cargo planes in Europe in preparations for similar operations in North America, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal separately reported on Nov. 4, citing undisclosed Western security officials.
"Russia is waging a hybrid war," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on Oct. 22. "It is attempting sabotage on Polish territory."
U.K. counter-terrorism officials are investigating whether Russian intelligence officers planted an incendiary device inside a parcel that caught fire at a warehouse near Birmingham, the Guardian reported on Oct. 16. The parcel, which engulfed in flames at a DHL warehouse on July 22, is believed to have been transported to the location on an airliner.
The Russian Baltic Fleet minesweeper Alexander Obukhov was put out of action thanks to a sabotage operation by Ukraine's military intelligence, the agency said on Oct. 7.
The Minsk City Court sentenced 12 people to prison over sabotage of the Machulishchy military airfield in Belarus last year, the Viasna human rights group said on Oct. 4. Some of the sentences were handed down in absentia.
Explosions on a railway bridge in Russia's Samara Oblast have damaged the concrete structures supporting the track, the Russian Telegram news channel Baza reported on Sept. 28. An "unknown device" exploded at around 1:30 p.m. local time near the city of Kinel, Baza reported. The explosion set off
Two teenagers in Omsk, Russia, set fire to a Mi-8 helicopter at an air base on September 21 using a Molotov cocktail, according to the Telegram channel Baza.
The Russian Investigative Committee described an incident as a "terrorist attack" and opened a criminal case.
Several European countries have in recent months reported numerous cases of espionage and sabotage suspected of being carried out at the behest of Russia.
Polish authorities detained former Open Russia activist Igor Rogov on charges of preparing an explosion. Rogov will reportedly face three months of pre-trial detention.
Russia's Defense Ministry claimed that Ukrainian soldiers broke into the territory of Russia's Kursk region on Aug. 6.
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