NATO countries stopped a Russian operation last spring aimed at testing secret technology to disable submarine cables essential to global communications and financial transactions. The intervention took place in Arctic waters near the Svalbard archipelago, where Russian submarines used submersible vehicles to simulate the use of the technology.
The joint operation by the United Kingdom, Norway, and the United States tracked and confronted the Russian ships at sea, preventing them from carrying out the exercise conducted by the Russian Main Directorate for Deep-Sea Research (GUGI). The exercise caused no damage to cables, but its intention was to assess the response of the Atlantic Alliance and the application of Article 5, according to American officials cited by Reuters.
The cables in question are two fiber optic cables approximately 1,400 kilometers long that connect Svalbard to mainland Norway, reaching depths of 2,700 meters. They carry data from the SvalSat satellite ground station, considered the world's largest, part of NASA's Near Space Network, which provides communication and navigation services for space missions.
Russian reconnaissance activity targeting submarine infrastructure has increased since 2023, with vessels operating near telecommunications cables, energy pipelines, and oil conduits. NATO has reinforced surveillance through the Baltic Sentry and Nordic Warden missions. Russia has not commented on the incident and systematically denies conducting sabotage operations in NATO countries.
