The German Navy will deploy ships to defend infrastructure in the Baltic Sea amid concerns about Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and recent incidents of damage to cables, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.
Scholz, who is attending a meeting on Baltic Sea security in Helsinki, said Germany was ready to take responsibility “with its own resources” given the growing threat.
“This obviously means that we will also guarantee safety in the Baltic Sea with German ships,” he said.
Russia’s “shadow fleet” refers to tankers and other cargo ships, often outdated vessels in poor condition and with opaque ownership structures, that Russia uses to export oil and other raw materials despite sanctions imposed as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.
The German Foreign Ministry now has a total of 79 ships in the ‘shadow fleet’.
NATO plans to significantly expand its presence in the Baltic Sea and is launching a surveillance mission. The two new NATO members, Finland and Sweden, have already announced that they will participate with ships.
According to information obtained by dpa, the NATO mission will involve a total of approximately ten naval vessels. Estonia already has a naval vessel patrolling the Gulf of Finland.
At the summit in Helsinki, the eight NATO countries on the Baltic Sea – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden – will try to coordinate responses to suspected deliberate damage to infrastructure in the sea.
Scholz called the incidents a “very serious matter.”