Russia’s Shadow War on NATO — Covert Sabotage Attacks on Europe’s Energy Infrastructure

Описание: Energy Security & Geopolitics Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Benjamin L. Schmitt, testifies before the U.S. Helsinki Commission at its Congressional Hearing: Russia's Shadow War on NATO.

Full Hearing:    • Russia's Shadow War on NATO — Helsinki Com...  

Chapters
00:00 - The Kremlin's Long-Standing Weaponization of Energy
01:48 - Clandestine Sabotage Attacks on NATO Energy & Critical Infrastructure
04:37 - From Russia's Summer of Sabotage to NATO's Autumn of Action

Schmitt begins by discussing Russia's campaign against Ukraine's civil energy infrastructure as epitomizing the Kremlin's long-standing weaponization of energy, which has included security-of-supply threats, monopolistic practices, disinformation, and the corruption & capture of elites. Schmitt urges to do everything possible to support Ukraine's air defense and long-range strike capability before this winter so that the Kremlin is unable to further expand the humanitarian nightmare that it has caused across Ukraine.

Schmitt suggests that Russia, while pursuing its hot war in Ukraine, is also waging a shadow war in which it is targeting energy and critical infrastructure through sabotage on NATO soil with impacts across land, sea, and space domains. Schmitt says this is being undertaken to create panic and undermine support for Ukrainian victory across the West.

Schmitt notes that he has been leading a UPenn research project focused on analyzing how the Russian Federation now brazenly conducts clandestine physical sabotage attacks against energy and critical infrastructure across the NATO alliance. This work includes studying policies, technologies, and open-source intelligence methods, including maritime automatic identification system data and commercial geospatial imagery data that can be developed and used to counter Kremlin hybrid warfare tactics.

Schmitt also tells us about his field research expedition visiting critical infrastructure facilities across Europe. He notes four stops that have become central case studies:
1. The Norwegian island of Svalbard, just 400 miles from the North Pole, where on January 7, 2022, a Russian fishing trawler was likely responsible for severing a vital subsea fiber optic cable transmitting commercial satellite data from the small sat ground station to the European mainland.
2. In the Gulf of Finland, the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline that links Finland and Estonia. There, in early October 2023, a Chinese-flagged vessel with Russian ownership, escorted by a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker, dragged an anchor for hundreds of kilometers, severing telecommunications cables and destroying the Balticconnector pipeline itself.
3. Near Denmark's island of Bornholm, Schmitt gathered seabed sonar data directly at the site of the September 2022 subsea destruction of the Kremlin-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, perhaps the highest profile energy sabotage incident to date. Schmitt suggests that attribution of that blast remains a subject of heated debate, and that early findings from his study call into question some of the current narratives.
4. The Brunsbüttel LNG Terminal in Germany. Construction of that terminal was meant to reduce Germany's energy dependence on Russia. But in late 2023, an onshore pipeline meant to connect the terminal to the German grid was found drilled through. Just a few weeks ago, Russian military-grade intelligence drones were spotted flying over the terminal.

Schmitt says these join other examples including an explosives cache with detonators found deliberately buried next to the NATO pipeline network just south of Heidelberg, Germany, to incidents in Poland, the Czech Republic, France, and the United Kingdom where attribution has been made against Russian actors, as well as non-Russian nationals that have been hired online on social media and Telegram by Russia's military intelligence, the GRU.

Schmitt says it is time that NATO leaders turn the table on the Putin regime in terms of its hybrid warfare campaign and move from Russia's summer of sabotage to NATO's autumn of action. Schmitt makes four recommendations:
1. Congress should support the invocation of NATO Article 4 consultative mechanisms from concerned NATO member states.
2. Congress must extend existing sanctions on the Kremlin-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will otherwise sunset this year, and must reverse the 2021 Biden Administration decision to avoid sanctions on Nord Stream 2 construction.
3. Congress should pass urgent legislation to end the ability of former U.S. officials from leaving office to work for U.S. adversaries like the Russian Federation.
4. Congress must pressure the Biden Administration to allow Ukrainian military to conduct necessary long-distance strikes against Russian military launch facilities that will otherwise continue to terror bomb Ukrainian energy infrastructure.