Through Captain Arunas’ binoculars, visibility is close to zero: "One kilometer, no more." The thick fog hanging over the Baltic Sea complicates the patrol for the 50 sailors aboard the Jotvingis. Their mission aboard the Lithuanian Navy command vessel: preventing hybrid threats as part of NATO's Baltic Sentinel operation.

An undersea data cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged early on January 26, the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Baltic Sea in which critical seabed energy and communications lines are believed to have been severed by ships traveling to or from Russian ports.

Russia is "the main actor" in hybrid attacks on the alliance, said a senior NATO official following a spate of incidents.

NATO is ratcheting up its guard against suspected attempts to sabotage underwater energy and data cables and pipelines that crisscross the Baltic Sea.

Intelligence officials in the U.S. and Europe have suggested that recent incidents damaging critical cables in the Baltic Sea were accidental, according to a Washington Post report. Western geostrategic self-deception has overly emphasized fears of escalation and cornering Russia.

NATO is deploying eyes in the sky and on the Baltic Sea to protect cables and pipelines that stitch together the nine countries with shores on Baltic waters.

Following a series of suspicious sabotage incidents, NATO countries have implemented patrols in the Baltic Sea to monitor the activities of Russian ships suspected of targeting undersea cables. This sea,

Incidents damaging Europe’s undersea networks have become more frequent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, raising suspicions they are the result of sabotage.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says that any peace settlement in Ukraine must involve Kyiv and come with more defense spending by regional countries to deter future Russian aggression.

Kyiv launches fresh drone assault on Putin's oil refineries inside Russia - Volgograd governor Andrei Bocharov says a fire temporarily broke out after a Ukrainian drone attack

Russia slammed Donald Trump ’s plan for an ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence shield in a nuclear weapons space war row. Moscow said the move was designed to weaken Russian and Chinese nuclear deterrence.