Members of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force will meet tomorrow to discuss plans to protect Europe's key underwater infrastructure against Russian sabotage.
The virtual gathering follows four ruptures last week in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 undersea gas-carrying pipelines running from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Those blasts occurred as Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing to announce the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces - a move widely denounced in the West as a violation of international law and a serious escalation of the conflict.
The Sunday Express has learned that a Nato briefing suggested the 1,200km Russian pipelines could have been constructed with back-door booby traps allowing Moscow to sever them in times of war, though this is just one of many working hypotheses.
While Russia denies responsibility, the event has raised concerns about the safety of other crucial infrastructures such as offshore pipelines, undersea communication cables and wind resources, which are generally considered to be vulnerable.
PM Liz Truss on Friday echoed Nato sentiments that they were ""clearly an act of sabotage", and last week agreed to assist both Denmark and Norway in shoring up their defences.
Royal Marines from a specialist counter drone commando unit have already been put on standby to join Norwegian forces who have already deployed to oil and gas platforms across the North Sea in readiness to deter any air infringements.
Both countries are members of the UK-led JEF, a naval high reaction group which also includes Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Many of Nato’s maritime assets are already planned to be in the North Sea this week for the start of their annual Joint Warrior Exercise, which will see 40 vessels from Britain, the US, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, France and Latvia congregate off the West Coast of Scotland.
Because of its geography, the UK is a transatlantic “hub” around which the hundreds of fibre-optic cables pass along the sea bed to Europe.
These cables transmit 98 percent of global communications and £7 trillion in daily financial transactions and include the 4,500-mile Havfrue/AEC-2, owned jointly by Google and Facebook, which spans between New Jersey to Ireland, Denmark and Norway as well as Google’s 4,000-mile Grace Hopper, which will stretch between New York to Cornwall and then Bilbao in Spain when it is operational .
In June Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, head of Britain’s armed forces, warned about the “phenomenal increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity in the past 20 years”
Of particular concern is Russia's development of the K-329 Belgorod submarine, a 182m behemoth which acts as a mother ship for deep diving nuclear-powered midget submarines capable of sabotaging undersea internet cables in relatively shallow waters of the North Sea.