NATO has decided to strengthen its presence in the Baltic Sea after underwater infrastructure was damaged in the area, according to news agency Reuters.

The measures include increased surveillance, NATO reports. Additional aircraft, drones, and mine clearance vessels will be deployed.

The reason for this is that last week there were reports of obvious damage to a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.

On Sunday Oct. 8, pressure suddenly dropped in the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.

It is not yet clear what caused the damage, and NATO is yet to come to any conclusions.

”We continue to monitor the situation closely and are in contact with our allies Estonia and Finland and our partner Sweden,” says Dylan White, a NATO spokesperson, according to Reuters.

Sweden, unlike Estonia and Finland, is not a member of the defense alliance NATO.

In addition to the damage to the Balticconnector, damage has also been found on a telecommunications cable between Sweden and Estonia.

The damage is said to have occurred around the same time.

A spokesperson for the Estonian State Prosecutor’s Office stated Thursday evening that the investigation into the damage to the telecommunications cable between Estonia and Sweden is considered part of the ongoing investigation into the damage to the Balticconnector, Reuters reports.

Since an explosion last year hit the large gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 in the waters near Bornholm, Denmark, there has been increased focus on the sensitive infrastructure of cables and wires that lie on the seabed, especially in the Baltic Sea.

Here, there are a large number of fiber cables that provide internet connectivity and other telecommunications.

Denmark, Sweden, and Germany are all conducting national investigations into the suspected sabotage at Nord Stream.

(Translated by DeepL with additional editing by Christian Radich Hoffman)