The U.K. and Norway on Thursday agreed to bolster cooperation to counter underwater threats amid concern that Russian spies are intent on targeting the NATO allies.
Speaking to reporters, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace claimed Russia has "a specific naval program designed to both look at and potentially sabotage or attack critical infrastructure belonging to its adversaries."
The British defense minister also said the Russian program has a number of submarines and "spy ships" that are "specifically designed" to wreak havoc on critical infrastructure.
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The push to safeguard critical infrastructure comes some nine months after the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were damaged in late September, resulting in what may have been the greatest methane leak to date off the coast of Denmark in the Baltic Sea.
Prosecutors investigating the incident found traces of explosives on "foreign objects" near the damaged pipelines in what they described as evidence of "gross sabotage."
Moscow has not been directly identified as being behind the incident that stopped natural gas from running from Russia to Europe, though Western officials have suspected the Kremlin, particularly given its tendency to attack critical infrastructure.
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On Thursday, Wallace said the U.K. and Norway were responding to the threats posed by Russia by jointly increasing efforts to protect the network of critical cables and pipelines that run through the North Sea.
The defense minister said that systems critical to the functioning of Western societies like oil, gas and electric systems, are "vulnerable" and "need to be protected."
The U.K. in July will launch a ship, RAF Proteus, with the sole purpose of patrolling areas with undersea infrastructure, particularly between Norway and the United Kingdom, where gas pipelines, wind farms and electronic cables run.
"What we can say without doubt is that Russia has the intent and the capability to target the West’s critical infrastructure," Wallace added. "We have to have the intent and capability to defend it."
