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Lithuanian advisor: Baltic Sea patrols need strengthening

In the wake of two undersea fibre-optic cables being damaged, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda’s chief national security advisor called on Tuesday for the country to increase its intelligence capacities and to increase the number of patrols in the Baltic Sea.

Advisor Kestutis Budrys told LRT TV that “it is now evident that we need stronger intelligence and surveillance capabilities in the Baltic Sea to respond more quickly to what is happening, to know who is moving around there at any given time, and to identify the ships which are present here. We need more patrols so that we know what is happening at sea during any period of time.”

The presidential advisor noted that Lithuania has information about Russian ships that are operating undercover in pursuit of intelligence and sabotage activities.

“We know that there are vessels under the guise of scientific research which are engaging in underwater activities aimed at disrupting our necessary communications systems,” Budrys explained. “We need to ramp up pressure so as to prevent Russia from navigating so freely.”

Budrys also called for more preventive work to protect maritime infrastructure.

Lithuania’s Swedish-owned telecommunications company Telia Lietuva has reported that one of three undersea communications cables between Sweden and Lithuania was damaged on Sunday morning.

The information was later confirmed by officials in Stockholm.

On Monday, Finland’s Cinia company reported that a cable linking Helinski and the German port town of Rostock had been severed for unknown reasons.

Officials in Germany and Finland said later that they had launched an investigation into the attack, both of them warning of a greater threat of “hybrid warfare.”

Source: BNS

(Reproduction of BNS information in mass media and other websites without written consent of BNS is prohibited.)

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