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Russia is using “ghost ships” to furtively map underwater energy and communicate pipelines in Nordic waters to prepare for a major conflict with the West, intelligence sources have claimed. Following a lengthy investigation into Russian vessels that have sailed in the Baltic and North Sea, as well as several Straits off the shores of Denmark, over the past six months, Scandinavian intelligence believes Putin’s military is planning to sabotage the NATO members (including Sweden) within the region by cutting power and data cables across the Atlantic and to the rest of Europe.
Intercepted radio communications from the Russian navy revealed that “ghost ships” – vessels that had turned off their transmitters to avoid sharing their location – had been employed in the region for months.
The naval vessel “Admiral Vladimirsky”, it alleged, was one of those vessels being used for intelligence purposes.
As it sailed in the Kattegat Strait, a large body of water between Denmark and Sweden, it refrained from sharing its location while continually sending radio messages to a naval base in Russia.
When DR journalists approached the vessel, having used the intercepted messages to track the ship, they were approached by uniformed men wearing bulletproof vests and armed with Russian military rifles.
Anders Henriksen, who works for the Danish Police Intelligence Service (PET), said Russia could use this information to paralyse Danish society in the event of a conflict with the West.
Nils Andreas Stensones, head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, alleged this strategic initiative was being controlled directly from Moscow.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied the allegations made in the Norwegian piece, saying they had “made a mistake in their investigation”.
He claimed that the report is another attempt to “baselessly blame Russia for everything”.
Russia’s ambassador to Norway Teymuraz Ramishvili said in a statement that the vessels investigated by the media outlets were operating “in full compliance with international law”.
The investigation was published in the wake of a decree signed by Vladimir Putin last July that mandated all Russian maritime vessels to make themselves available for military operations upon request.
This includes civilian research vessels, cargo ships and fishing trawlers, according to Norwegian defence expert Stale Ulriksen.
Such a mobilisation would leave Nordic countries under serious threat of mining, as that can be carried out from civilian ships. This could, in turn, Mr Ulriksen suggested, cause carnage for critical infrastructure in the region.
The report suggested hundreds of Russian ships, many of which have already been journeying through Nordic waters, could be mobilised for an attack.
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