Latest / ACLED Audio / WEBINAR: What patterns are emerging in the South China Sea?

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WEBINAR: What patterns are emerging in the South China Sea? · ACLED Audio

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, welcome everyone.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to today's webinar on uh uh refresh shadow freeze sanction censors evasion uh meets hybrid warfare.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is the title for uh for today's um for today's panel, uh where we are going to discuss uh what is a rapidly uh evolving security challenge uh which combines kind of commercial opacity with uh state sponsored sabotage.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh this is not a new a new topic, uh, but of course has made uh inroads into uh media highlights and particularly um policymakers' uh priorities with uh you know with also a changing kind of focus of uh of public debate.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for the past few years, the conversation um around Russia's shadow fleet has uh focused heavily on uh on economics.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: So basically how Moscow uses uh its aging under insured kind of tankers, layers of shell companies to evade uh to evade price caps, and its war machine, and of course, uh evade sanctions.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um but as our speaker's latest research reveals, what we are seeing is something different as well.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it's how the shadow fleet has gradually has gradually evolved from an economic advisor mechanism into a frontline platform for what is called kind of hybrid warfare and sabotage activities uh in and beyond uh Europe.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're seeing a pattern of gray zone um aggression below the threshold of conventional war, which includes uh the cutting of undersea telecommunication cables, the disruption of uh powered grids, and also a spike in uh uh drone surveillance over European critical civilian and sometimes military infrastructure.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: So to debate and uh um all of this, we're joined by the authors of two important reports from uh from ACLED and uh uh SEPA.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh these are um Vitold uh Stuknitsky, uh senior analyst for Europe and Central Asia at ACLED, and Mathieu Boulej, uh senior fellow in the transatlantic defense and security program at uh SEPA.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um reports war uh without end, deterring Russia's shadow war, co-authored by uh by Mathieu Boulej with other colleagues at SEPA, and uh Vitold's uh Russia's Shadow Fleet presents a sustained hybrid war threat at sea.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, they are trying to unpack basically the data, the dynamics behind these maritime threats and evaluate how the West can also restructure its deterrence framework to meet a campaign that is built to exploit uh the legal and political hesitation in many ways.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'll try to get straight into the discussion.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: We'll go through, of course, some some of the main kind of topics at the center of this research.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we'll also take and I encourage everyone to submit their questions through the Q ⁇ A um uh chat box.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And towards uh you know the second half of the of the webinar, I'll uh I'll I'll do my best to uh to to take and uh and and share these questions with our speakers.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: So without further further ado, I'll um I'll I'll I'll start and I'll turn to um to V Todd to perhaps give us a bit of uh of an overview because uh what I mentioned before, like we used to view the shadow fleet basically as a financial lifeline for the Kremlin.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: So how did the network that was built for bypassing oil sanctions evolve into say a weaponized tool for maritime espionage and physical sabotage as well?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Andra.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, so the starting point for our research was was this uh question, right?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we knew that the shadow fleet existed as a sanctioned uh evasion mechanism.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Over a thousand of these age tankers with these opaque systems of of ownership sailing under the false flags and then manipulation of uh of automatic identification systems, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So so our question was uh is that all it is, or it or has it become something something more?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, our core argument based on what Ackland event-level tracking of cable damages, uh, of drone activity and other events in the in the in the Baltic Sea and beyond, show is that the shadow fleet has evolved into this hybrid workfirm platform, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it still moves sanctioned oil, but the same vessels, the same network, the same operational concealment now also enables Russia to, first of all, yeah, damage undersea uh infrastructure, and then secondly, conduct grown reconnaissance over European critical infrastructure.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it also increases it increasingly operates alongside uh Russian military ships.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to focus here on three different layers.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, first, which is a convergence on the individual vessel level, right?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the clearest example here is the is the feedback incident on the on the New Year's Eve of 2025, where uh uh single tanker on one voyage was was linked to these different to these two different one one could think uh areas, which is basic, which was basically damage to an undersea cable between Helsinki and Tallinn.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was a Russian still found uh found uh in the in the hold, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh even without proven intent on the on the cable damage, basically the the Finnish investigation uh in this case remains open, uh the convergence on on one vessel is um uh striking, right?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: But even more importantly, so uh uh even more important one is the sort of an environmental logic.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So uh in in most of these uh of these cases, individual vessels cannot be conclusively tied to a specific incident, right?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's the system itself that enables this uh hybrid operation.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's the scale, it's the volume of Russian affiliated vessels in the uh in the Baltic Sea.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then there is all of this suspicious activity, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: There is uh drifting, there is uh there is AIS and guts identified in the in the maritime intelligence.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this so this density of opaque commercial traffic creates basically creates the conditions for sabotage and reconnaissance to be to be both feasible and to be also deniable at the at the same time.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And this and the opacity is not is not uh incidental.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's basically structurally what makes hybrid activity possible.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the the third point that uh that that I want to uh um to make here is that is also the convergence with Russian military operations, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So so the shadow fleet doesn't operate in isolation, and and we've seen we've seen Russian corvettes now escorting sanctioned tankers through the English uh channel.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen uh Russian Su-35 violating Estonian airspace to protect shadow fleet tankers.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there is this famous intelligence vessel uh called Yantar that that continues to loiter uh exclusive economic zone of UK, mapping under sea cables, etc.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So and then also you know in February this year, uh Swedish forces actually confirmed a drone launch from a Russian military intelligence ship targeting a French aircraft, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so the line between commercial shipping and military activity in the Baltic Sea is is is blurring in uh real time.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So to sum up, yeah, the the the evolution is essentially this.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: The Shadow Fleet was built to solve Russia's uh oil export problem under sanctions.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then once it existed at scale, it it also became available for other uses.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And now it operates as as this dual platform, economic at the surface, but then hybrid in its operational uh logic.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Vitor.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um and turning to Matthew, but just also moving a step forward here.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: So how has the Kremlin basically integrated its undersea capabilities and also like these basically transitioned into uh into something into something different, into its broader military doctrine?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And why you think the kind of Western, particularly undersea infrastructure is so uniquely difficult to protect against these uh these threats?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Andrea, and great to be here.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the fact that we are sitting here and now discussing something that we present as new as the shadow fleet uh now comes probably 30 years too late, because there is nothing new about this shadow fleet.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing new about the way Russia's projecting itself and its intentions against the West, against NATO, against the perceived expansion of NATO, and so on.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this dates from Soviet uh theory and Soviet practice.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: The shadow fleets used to exist and dates from the Soviet activities.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that now we are a bit more aware of the effects that these things have, and we also see more activity around our borders, our waters, and so on, because we are monitoring, and our monitoring capabilities have increased.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there is in this nothing new.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for the spoiler for those who are maybe not fully attuned to this, Russian authorities define themselves in a protracted conflict against us, against the West, against NATO, against global governance.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a hard concept to uh accept.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to be aware that Russia wants, in a way, to continue waging this sort of continuous war against us.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this is very much how the Russian authorities have been defining themselves, probably since the end of the Cold War, and even more so now with the damage they've been doing to European security and further to Ukraine, of course.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um choosing not to accept that Russia's at war with us is the sort of argument equivalent of not choosing to believe in aliens that won't really protect you from an alien invasion if they come one day, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I know it's a stupid analogy, but it really needs to um get into that sort of mindset.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um leading to what shadow war really is and all these forms of hybrid wars and all these things that we've been trying to define without really understanding what they are in the first place.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Shadow war is not a tool.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is not just a tool, it is a defining feature of how Moscow defined itself in this very protracted conflict with the West and with NATO.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's much more a study of the definition of the nature of war, the unchanging nature of war, the software of war, the state of confrontation, more than it is a conversation about the character of war, which is the sort of changing nature of warfare in a way, or the hardware, if you will, the different tools and the different active measures that are part and parcel of how Russia is projecting these capabilities against us.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it really is about this new operating environment where the thresholds of attribution have completely melted, the response frameworks are hard because everything is gray, everything is hard to attribute, and because technology has been outpacing us in many ways.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And in this, in this very new sort of what we perceive to be a new form of warfare, Russia has been really good at exploiting the gaps inside of in terms of governance, in terms of response, and in terms of willingness to respond.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, cables are very easy to target.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: They are shooting, in a way, they're very easy shooting targets and shooting ducks because they lie at the bottom of our oceans.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they do represent a critical node or a critical choke point for communication, whether it is military or whether it is civilian.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And recalling to the audience as well that cables represent roughly 99% of the whole of the internet traffic, which is the reason why we speak online today, the reason why you can clear a payment online, and the reason why you can uh watch Netflix or watch cat videos on TikTok.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it is in a way a sitting duck that Russia has been good at exploiting.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because there is a strong, very strong incentive for nefarious actors like Russia and increasingly like China, for instance, in the South China Sea, to disrupt these capabilities and to uh use a whole range of uh capabilities, whether it is submersible, whether it is uh anchor dredging incidents or the use of these dual use of civilian vessels as part of the shadow fleet uh to uh to disrupt uh the these cables.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Disruption, but also intelligence gathering, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the destruction of cables or the tampering of data cables or uh electricity cables or pipelines.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is also linked to a lot of intelligence gathering or military intelligence gathering that the Kremen is conducting uh against Europe in particular.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, mapping or monitoring seabed infrastructure uh for preparation of potential acts of sabotage.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So physical destruction is one thing, but you need to have eyes and ears to understand exactly what kind of infrastructure you have and how to temper it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about the waters as well, it is also about what we call landing stations, which is basically the infrastructure on land that is at risk of physical and cyber attacks from the Kremlin that are also part of that uh ecosystem of infrastructure of data cables, but very much also at risk when it comes to uh physical and cyber destruction.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And another aspect of that conversation that is generally overlooked is also the potential targeting of the support infrastructure.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's one thing to damage a cable, but if a nefarious state can also damage uh the cable repair and the maintenance fleet of ships that are uh that exist to repair these cables, then it is also a critical choke point for us in terms of resilience and in terms of response.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the support infrastructure for these cables is also very interesting to uh to look at in terms of vulnerability.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all of this is enabled, and I think we'll come back to it, uh, by a very pervasive legal and administrative environment, specifically enabling that shadow fleet when it comes to the registration of ships or the illegal registration of ships through third countries, very loose registration and legal frameworks around flags of convenience.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can register a ship in the British Virgin Islands, for instance, or in Cyprus, through a Hong Kong ownership and shell companies that are traced back to Russia, a lot of legal work, uh legal footwork to actually find who is the responsible party, which makes attribution very complicated.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And also very loose procedures when it comes to the International Maritime Code, for instance, as part of the IMO for enforcement of ships that are illegally sailing or having very strange behavior at sea or that are spoofing uh their location through the tempering of AIS, which is the automatic uh identification tracker system that all ships have, or their radio signals through VMS uh for uh for shortband communication.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this is once again not new, but is sort of discovered as new by Western policy, which means that now we have to play catch-up with what the Kremlin is doing, and we are sort of already late uh to a very fast moving train.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be happy to continue the conversation on this.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Mathieu, and uh we'll yeah, we'll definitely come back to this.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually wanted to um to piggyback on uh on the on a point you made, which is uh that this is not a new phenomenon, uh, but this is actually something that has come uh you know has been brought up to the attention of public opinion and policymakers, also as a result of better monitoring and also as part of the wider um the wider conversation of uh Europe's um uh standing uh vis-a-vis uh Russia.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to turn back to Vito here, because uh in your uh you in your report and actually in kind of a series also of um of reports that ACET has uh produced over over the past few months, um you've detailed physical infrastructure damage.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: You basically highlighted specific incidents related to uh the shadow fleet, one being the one involving the Eagle S tanker, which damaged a power table in uh December 2024.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was wondering whether you could uh give us kind of a deep dive on uh particularly the vulnerability of Baltic and North E North Sea infrastructure to these accidental kind of anchor drugs or other type types of um of incidents.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And whether you can tell us a bit more also about the geographic concentration of these threats, at least over the past, you know, over the past uh couple of years.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um if if if possible.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: So over to you, Vito.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um right, sure.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh can we move to the to the next slide?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, thanks.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thanks, uh Andre.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the word accidental is uh doing uh an important work here, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's it's it's the right word to start with, because the you know that the criminal law standard of proven intent is basically where the where the response faces faces the most uh the a lot of challenges, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so our data shows that the you know that the infrastructure uh uh in the in the in the Baltic and and in the in the North Sea as well is highly concentrated, that the damage pattern is is consistent, and basically that the response is not able to follow follow on uh on what's happening, right?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've seen a couple of these under sea cable being damaged since the beginning of the of the full-scale invasion of in the well, Russian full-scale invasion in uh Ukraine.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, across 2023, 2024, 2025, many, many of these events uh um with you know with uh suspected involvement of of shadow fleet uh vessels so far, and so far we've seen zero zero uh successful prosecutions, right?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to make three three points here, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: First, about the geography itself, as you as you as you as you mentioned.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um the geography concentrates the threat and allows for it because the Baltic Sea has these structural conditions that that make it uniquely exposed to this uh kind of uh threat.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, uh Russia's largest Baltic oil uh export ports, which are Primorsk and Ustluga, sit at its, you know, at its eastern end.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then the seabed is is quite shallow and dense with all of this critical infrastructure that connects uh European, uh yeah, northern European, Nordic, and and Baltic countries, right?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they include telecom cables, power cables, and and gas pipelines as uh as uh Mathew already mentioned.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and also the entire Baltic Sea has no high seas, which basically means that you know that every square mile uh uh basically sits within either territorial waters of these coastal countries or exclusive or exclusive economic zones.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when you when you combine it with the with the freedom of navigation provisions under the international maritime law, um this basically means that uh that the same waters that concentrate this threat also constrain the enforcement, right?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I wanted to to focus on on these three infrastructure types, uh so telecom cables, power cables, and gas pipelines, because they they carry they also carry different stakes, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when we when we hear when we speak about uh about the damage to undersea cable, uh this actually means different things uh uh when you to when you look at the specific type of type of infrastructure being damaged, right?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So telecom cables get damaged the most.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: So majority of these events are related to telecom cables, but they are also of a less importance, if you if you will.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, individual cuts uh uh have have.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Smaller consequences, right?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then power cables are less frequent but also but more consequential, right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, uh S-Tlink 2 Rupture in 2024 did cut two-thirds of uh electricity transfer capacity between uh Estonia and Finland, and then repair took several months, right?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then gas pipelines, I would say, uh probably carried the highest strategic stakes, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the Baltic connector damage that was that was done in 2023, uh basically you know, reversed years of of work toward uh Finnish and Estonian energy independence.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then and then the the last point on this that I would like to make is uh is that the response, at least up to up to certain point, has been calibrated to uh to a single sabotage event, but uh but you know, but the threat operates as a as a system, right?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so each case basically follows the same pattern, right?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: There is physical damage, there is uh uh suspected vessel nearby, uh with yeah with identification turned off at some point or with some suspected suspected uh uh activity nearby.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Then if there is uh boarding or seizure of such ship, there is some sort of criminal investigation and either no proven intent, which which yeah which is ended uh by stating either no proven intent or no jurisdiction uh of the of the of the court over this case, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and we've seen it over and and over.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the most recent case, Pitbull case, which I which I mentioned in this case, investigation is still ongoing, but yeah, but for many many of these critical events uh from the last couple of years, the investigation did was uh was finished about uh without any consequences imposed on on anyone, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but the pattern, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if you if you look at the pattern, uh I mean, yeah, the pattern, the pattern is clear, yeah, although the individual cases might be more ambiguous, right?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So to sum up, this is why uh why our argument is about the environment, right, and not the individual ships.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because as long as you are as long as as you are trying to prosecute uh you know these specific accidents, the threshold of proof will basically keep keep failing.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the it's it's the structural reality of you know of hundreds of these of these opaque transits that that create the conditions for this damage to to happen, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Probably sometimes accidentally, but most likely in the majority of cases not.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the current framework cannot uh cannot distinguish these two cases uh reliably.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Victor, can I ask you to to actually integrate these uh kind of this overview of incidents at sea, which as Matthew uh also mentioned before, like we have incidents at sea, but also inland.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh one distinctive element that you also kind of show in your uh in your report is that there has been, especially last year, a spike in uh uh drone kind of incidents within at least uh 150 kilometers of uh European coasts, including over flying naval bases, energy grids, airports, kind of the critical infrastructure which is uh vulnerable to potential uh to potential attacks.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us why these events are significant and uh how is the shadow fleet believed to be enabling or coordinating even these uh these drone flights?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, certainly.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, uh thanks, Andrea.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh please let's move to the next slide.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, so the drone question is is where the attribution problem is even more difficult.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh we don't argue that that every drone incident uh among these, you know, among these 54 that we registered in 2020 in the in the previous year, uh we don't argue that uh that every of these incidents can be can be traced back to a specific vessel because most cannot be.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but rather we we argue that the co cumulative geography uh basically allows uh for it to happen.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what's happening is the following.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um we yeah, we recorded over the last couple of years with the with the with with uh certain spike in 2025.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of a lot of these suspected drone uh incidents, as you said, within the uh 150 kilometers of European coasts, and and they and this included over flights of naval bases, uh airports, um, and energy infrastructure across uh Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, and and uh and others.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And only a small number of these have direct vessel level evidence.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but again, you the overall spatial logic of the shadow fleet's routine operations sort of helps to explain the broader pattern.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um so first of all, yeah, uh we've seen only one drone launch from a ship that has been technically verified, and it wasn't even a shadow fleet vessel.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to to mention this one because it's uh it's it it also supports the broader argument about the the Russian threat in the Baltic Sea.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: So basically in February this year, uh Swedish forces were able to detect, jump, and then confirmed uh a drone launch from the from the from Zhigulesk, which is Russian military intelligence ship, which targeted uh uh aircraft uh carrier uh Charles de Gaulle.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the but I mean obviously yeah, the Zigolesk, as I said, is this is a military ship, not uh not a commercial one, but this also shows how the how these two uh potentially separate, I mean, in theory separate, but then in practice very very uh operating together.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: So commercial side of things and then military side of things, these two these two fleets operate together in the in the European uh waters.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: That being said, there is also strong circles circumstantial evidence that the that shadow fleet vessels are actual are actually doing the same thing, which is basically launching drones towards uh towards various uh uh well in in various points uh targeting uh European critical infrastructure.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the examples is uh uh Scanlark, which was seized in uh by uh by by Germans in September 2025, uh where basically prosecutors said that it had it had launched uh uh a drone over a German Navy frigate at Kiel.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then surveillance equipment was found on board, and and German authorities basically classified this uh it as uh as a Russian S Pone uh uh ship and a mobile drone base.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so very, very, very I mean more uh clearer case here.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then there is uh the famous case of of a ship that that sails under many different uh names.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you could if we could move to the to the next slide, uh one of them being Pushpa or or Borakai, basically a sanctioned tanker on uh on the route from Russia to India.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it was uh it was tracked about about 50 nautical miles south of Copenhagen on the 22nd of September 2025, during the uh you know the the famous wave of drone incidents that that led to uh closing of Copenhagen Airport.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then it did transit uh uh uh Denmark's western coast on uh two days later, uh during further drone incidents nearby uh in the in the in the in the areas inland uh nearby, right?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: So this means that well, the the vessel was within the Orland class drone range of those incidents, um and then French forces boarded it it a week later, though uh you know on not on not on a drone related evidence, right?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh again on the on the on the sailing under false flag.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so so so the main structural argument uh argument here, summing it at it up, is that Shadow Fleet provides this persistent geographic access, right?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh typical uh typical tanker that sails from Primort in uh in uh Russia to India, uh you know, it passes within broad range of Copenhagen airports, right?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it passes within broad range of uh Swedish naval bases, German critical infrastructure, right?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just as a matter of standard commercial routing, right?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't even need every shadow fleet vessel to be uh to be launching drones, right?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: You just need a steady uh a steady stream of this opaque routinely transit transiting vessels in in uh in proximity to um to European critical infrastructure, and the rest follows.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Vino, for uh this very detailed overview of uh of basically the you know the incidents that are believed to be connected with uh uh with the Russia shadow fleet.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I see we're already receiving some questions, but we'll come back to to them uh to them later in the Q ⁇ A.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because I want to to turn to uh again to Mathieu here and kind of trying to connect basically these uh these kind of the sheer volume of drone cable incidents that we've seen.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: But um you made a point in your report for uh for SEPA, which is that kind of the shadow warfare, basically, the strategy is not opportunistic, but it's kind of an institutionalized system where you say disruption is success.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and even failure kind of justifies more investment, more risk taking.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was wondering if you could perhaps unpack for us the internal logic of the Kremlin here, which is driving this gradual escalation.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And to what extent do you also see dangers for areas beyond like Europe, beyond the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, like the Arctic, for example?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Andre.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and further to to Vitold's point, fully agree with uh with what you said, Vitold.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um there is definitely a very strong incentive for Russia to um continue waging this sort of subthrow-intensity warfare because it's cheap, right?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's cheap, it's easy, you don't need a lot of capabilities, right?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: You just need some Fisher people or a cargo ship uh transiting with an anchor and doing damage.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um drones are excessively cheap as a form of new warfare.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, intelligence gathering is also a very cheap thing to do.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there is definitely an incentive in continuing this because it's cheap, because it's easy in a way, there is a very large learning curve from the Kremlin in terms of intelligence gathering, in terms of military uh intelligence at that, and because also Russia has both the capabilities and the structures in place inside of the different agencies, whether it is the Ministry of Defense, the FSB, or the border guards, and so on.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it already is there.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's not much to create.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And also because from the Kremlin's perspective, they see how uncoordinated we are in our response.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: They see that it takes a long time for us at NATO level, at European Union level, to actually come up with a credible response.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: It took a few years before we woke up to that sort of shadow fleet low-intensity warfare against critical infrastructure, before we got Baltic Century and Task Force X of NATO to sort of enable this sort of big meta response against the threat.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Baltic Century in terms of increased awareness at sea and in the air by NATO with the use of modern technologies such as drones, and increased uh awareness and response uh through naval and aerial patrols in the Baltic Sea, and Task Force X, which is sort of uh technological experiments that uh NATO is conducting uh in the Baltic Sea as well, that aims to integrate uh what we call seabed to space situational awareness.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: So basically understanding that you cannot see and hear anything unless you understand the whole 360 degree of your environment, which comes from the seabed to the surface, to the air, to space, basically with space-based assets and space relays.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is this is where we are, but it took a long time before we got there.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we are really playing catch-up with the level of the threat.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: So once again, it's cheap, everything's in place, and Russia sees that it is achieving effects, right, in terms of um its ability to conduct these operations.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the problem is what do we do with it?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think to further to Vitolt's point, we never really attributed clearly any of these incidents back to Russia, right?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like the breadcrumb of evidence is really sending a red flag or a sort of smoking gun that says, oh, it's people in the Kremlin who did it.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, which means that we also have to adapt our response protocols to what we see.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we need to change the framework around how we perceive these activities because I would want to uh see more um brazen and open response to these things, because we we have to understand that all Russian flagged or all vessels linked to Russia operating anywhere close to our waters uh across NATO and European Union states, are able, unabled, and authorized to conduct these dual use activities, including uh the disruption of uh critical underwater infrastructure.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a different mindset, but we really need to get to it.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: That it's not because we don't have the smoking gun evidence that Russia's doing anything bad, doesn't mean that they're up to anything good either.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the track record of evidence that Vitold has presented, from these drone overflights to these very weird transit and cargoes from these vessels, also show that their behavior is not clear and they have things to hide.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Also, because the technology to acquire intelligence is also getting a bit more obfuscated.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is easier now, after years of uh learning curve and years of experience, to hide and conceal the apparatus and the different tools and capabilities that Russia could be or may be using on board their ships and with their drones to conduct uh intelligence gathering.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not just the Baltic, because this is also a wider theater.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a map, uh, Bianca, if you could project it about uh the Arctic as well.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's the backbone of the infrastructure that I was mentioning.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: If we could have the uh two next slides, that would be wonderful.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um not this one, but the next.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a map that I did for another report uh way back when on how the Arctic is also targets to these uh uh critical underwater infrastructure disruption, because even more than the Baltic Sea, which is shallow waters, the Arctic in and on itself is also a theater where disrupting cable infrastructure is even more damaging for uh local communities, for local economy, and for basic communication.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because there are three main choke points that you can see on this map that uh are really present because of the lack of resilience of these cables.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Resilience as in the ability to uh repair these cables easily, because of the distance and what we call the spatial diversity of the cables on the seabed, basically they're either not spaced out enough or there's only one cable running through certain choke points.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: And because of the lack of redundancy of these cables.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, once again, you only have one cable available and not a multitude of data cables, for instance, or power cables to transit the same uh data points or the same power, uh, whether it is electricity or um and so on.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the Arctic is also another area where Russia is using definitely uh these forms of subthreshold uh activities to continue disrupting.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And also further to Russia's thinking is that it is the logic of what we call horizontal escalation from one theater to another.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, if something happens in the Baltic Sea, there is a chance that this sort of pressure or escalation or miscalculation because of accidents and so on could degenerate into another theater.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you could have a sort of ping-pong effect from the Baltic Sea to the Arctic, or from the North Atlantic to the Arctic, and vice versa, with uh tension originating somewhere, degenerating somewhere else, right?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the Arctic is also, I think, uh ripe for that form of contestation, whether because of miscalculation of accidents, you name it, and a lot has to do with the disruption of uh of critical underst infrastructure.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now it all comes uh down to what we do about it, but I think we are going to be discussing this on uh what we do basically and what should be done uh to increase our level of attribution and therefore to increase our level of deterrence against uh these activities and remove the shadows right from that shadow fleet, so to speak.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Martyr.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um noting again, we have uh questions piling up in the in the Q ⁇ A, which we'll turn in in a second.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: But I I wanted to follow up on a point that you just made and also uh veiled into that, which is the uh basically the courtroom standards of proof, uh which uh you use also in your uh in your report to basically link uh kind of the the shadow fleet or kind of Russian strategy to these incidents in in Europe.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: How um how do you uh envisage basically a ship, whether it's political or legal, in our uh in kind of Western security frameworks to recognize that these coordinated accidents are actually part of a strategy, are part of a kind of aggressive strategy.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so further to this point, what should be done?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's uh a few questions on the QA on what to do.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, we need to attribute, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: We need to find that smoking gun, whether it is hidden or whether it is in plain sight and very visible.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Attribution comes through three very crucial and paramount elements that have to sort of come together and the stars need to align on these three elements.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is technical attribution.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, the proof, the technical proof that yes, there was damage to cable, or yes, there was an activity that was not legal that Russia conducted, or any ship conducted at sea or in the air for drones, that says this should not have taken place.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: The best way to have better attribution is to be present, right?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's to uh conduct what we call deterrence by presence.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, better domain awareness, which is the ability to see and hear what's happening at sea and in the air, remote sensing to understand at the moment an incident happens to have a sort of feedback loop onto it, early warning systems, and overall the use of modern technology, such as uncrewed systems, for instance.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: If Russia uses drones, maybe we should be using more drones as well to survey the skies and the waters, to have a form of deterrence by presence, right?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about increasing the level of patrols, it's also about linking up space-based detection, cyber detection, uncrewed systems, modern technology, and so on, to have basically a mesh or a very fine mesh of systems that allows us to say, hey, this is really weird behavior, we should investigate.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Technical attribution.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: The second element is the legal framework.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: You were mentioning the courtroom.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is paramount and critical to streamline the different legal frameworks that we have across NATO countries, across European uh nations, to have uh both the national jurisdiction and the multilateral jurisdiction in place to prosecute the responsible parties.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we call deterrence by accountability.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is a sort of shift now progressively across Europe and across NATO that even if we don't really have a smoking gun about damage to a cable.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or an infrastructure by this particular ship or this particular person, then damage has still been done, right?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: If we have proof of physical damage or even cyber damage to an infrastructure, then damage has been done.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: So reparation must be attributed, right?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: So in terms of insurance mostly and the link between the insurance companies and the legal framework, there needs to be much more that can be done to attribute by accountability.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: You are accountable for a nefarious action, whether it is your ship, your captain, your infrastructure, or even, you know, the shell company that is behind the flag of convenience you're sailing.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot more on that legal aspect.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: The third um critical aspect is really the political attribution.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where it's the hardest because it takes political willingness, it takes courage, and it takes bravado from a political perspective to attribute and then to counter, right?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: To uh do something about it.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And since we are a little uncoordinated about the nature of the Russian threat, right, specifically in Western Europe, where Russia is not always considered a threat to European security, go say that to the Baltic states, to Poland, or to Ukraine.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it is very much a question of a form of multilateral understanding and multilateral cooperation, cohesion, solidarity, and ultimately deterrence by punishment to tell the Kremlin whether we have a smoking gun or not, your behavior is irresponsible, and your behavior should be punished as such.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: So more united responses, more contributions uh in terms of a coherent framework from a political perspective.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because these uh these forms of behavior are not going away.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: They will get worse as we continue, as the Kremlin is even more entrenched in this form of direct warfare against Ukraine and in direct warfare against us.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Mathieu.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh very, very, very detailed but also concise answer.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you, thank you so much for uh for the breakdown basically of uh of how to confront from even just uh you know recognition of of the of the threat.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'll uh I'll I'll I'll start picking up some of the questions we have in the in the Q ⁇ A and I'll turn to um to VTOL first.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in uh in your graph, you were uh basically showing the Spipe in uh 2025, like how many events were recorded.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that was followed by uh by 2026, so the first uh I think uh four or five months of 2026, which uh which record very, very few events.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um the question is actually whether you think that the the there was a seasonal element, like whether conditions that explains uh the the you know the decrease in the number of events, or whether you see potentially a change in in Russian strategy, which seems unlikely based on uh what we've heard from you from uh from Matthew.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: So do you have any hypothesis as well?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's also what we can we can work on.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for uh thanks for for this question.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, indeed, you know, indeed we've seen uh we've seen change in terms of temporal patterns.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um look, I mean the the first thing that I want to say is that the threat posed by Russia's shadow fleet, you know, is it's not going anywhere.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it is it is here and it will continue to pose uh to pose uh uh a threat.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: That being said, uh yeah, the drop in in drone incidence that we recorded in the in the first four months of 2026.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, it may it may reflect a seasonal rule, it it may uh you know, it may reflect the change to or preparation of some other modalities.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: It could also point out to some improvements in European defense or deterrence.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, honestly speaking, yeah, it's a bit a bit too early to say that.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um the spike that we seen in 2025, also, also this is probably something important to note.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was both Denmark and Belgium and Germany.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you know it was happening at the all at the same time, while also, you know, while also um uh well one-way armed drones uh you know flying into Poland from Belarus.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, so basically we saw that you know in September last year there has been uh you know mobilization on all fronts of hybrid uh warfare, if you will.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, but you know, just the fact that we haven't seen much of many of these events so far this year, it does not mean that you know that there won't be, you know, perhaps in this uh in this uh so yes, so seasonality may also explain it to some to some extent.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, Mathieu, if if you also wanted to share your uh your view on uh on that.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: And also Vital mentioned uh that you know potentially European or NATO kind of uh uh response, like we don't know yet whether it's been effective, but I don't know if you can comment on on these particularly.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: NATO has uh inaugurated, of course, uh a mission um uh Sentry, Operation Sentry.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was wondering whether you see any initial kind of impressions about its effectiveness uh in countering these threats.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, fully agree on what we Vital said about seasonality.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Also, you know, we we've been insisting on that shadow fleet, but it's it's still not a priority in the Kremlin, right?
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: They have a war to fight against Ukraine and to win, quote unquote.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is where they're throwing off most of the money and the budgets and the attention in the Kremlin.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the the shadow fleet is not the key uh priority in disrupting the security environment of the Baltic Sea is one out of many priorities in the Kremlin.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: The first being, of course, the war against Ukraine and evading sanctions.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this is this is uh very seasonal in the aspect that Russia doesn't have all of its time and budget to spend on that shadow fleet and on these activities.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, do we see the initial effects?
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think so, because we see more of what's going on, right?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the more we see, the more we can understand the nature and the extent of the threat, and the better we can respond.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it will take time before we have a full and comprehensive picture of everything Russia is throwing at us and or China increasingly as well, because there is a form of cooperation, uh, if not tag teaming between Russia and China for these sort of activities in the Baltic Sea.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's a learning curve for NATO, definitely, for European nations, for NATO individual members.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a learning curve for Nordic and Baltic nations, but I think we're getting there.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the the more light we can put on these shadows, the the less shadows there will be, and the less places Russia will be able to hide, right?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm expecting the first uh sort of red uh red flag smoking gun attribution in the coming months.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think one country will have the bravado and the brazenness one day to say this is clearly attributable to Russia, let's do it, let's prosecute immediately.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this will also be a learning curve for us on how to do it better and further uh along those lines in the coming months.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm expecting you know more mistakes from the Kremlin to be made as we see more and we understand more what they're doing.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mistakes will lead to real attribution, and real attribution would lead to better deterrence.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we are getting there.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also the political sort of understanding as it is that definitely there is a priority that we need to look at.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we have several questions from from people in uh in the audience about the effectiveness of uh of uh sanctions, particularly, and about specific elements of the kind of sanctions regime.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: So whether it's about um uh sanctioning uh certification structures that support basically Russian oil infrastructure or the classification of uh um kind of uh clubs, uh societies and clubs supporting kind of the Russian shadow fleet, uh whether domestically and abroad, and whether it'd be even possible to sanction like uh ships, captains, uh maritime staff hiring agencies, and basically the system that enables the shadow fleet to exist and thrive.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um perhaps this is more of a question for uh for Mattia, because also your report looks at maybe uh you know at the broader um at the broader policy recommendations on that front.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_02: But do you think that some of these measures would be effective or would create opportunities for further evasion?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a great question, and uh, Vitol, feel free to jump in as well.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: But my my two cents on this is that look, sanctions are a tool to achieve something, right?
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the the issue with sanctions and the issue with all these elements is that we have for a long time understood them as an end game, as that something to achieve.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sanctions achieve nothing.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're a tool, right?
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're part of a toolkit of measures that can help deter a certain set of behavior that we don't like and that we want change.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um the issue is that we've taken them the other way around and considered them the end, right?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: We did sanctions, great, but what do we want from it, right?
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as we don't really have a desired end state about Russia, about what we want with the Kremlin from the Kremlin moving forward, then sanctions will only be limited.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um yet they have worked, right?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: They have put the Russian economy under stress, they have put the leadership under a lot of restraint, uh, specifically against Ukraine, and they have been working, but there is a limit to what sanctions can achieve, specifically because enforcement is complicated, specifically because you have second, third degree order and consequences of these sanctions, specifically what we call secondary sanctions, basically not just the plus one, but also the plus twos and threes and four and five and so on in a chain of responsibility behind Russia, all these shell companies and all these mock companies and all these offshore paradigms and so on that Russia is exploiting.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the issue is that the moment we try to over-sanction too much, we are also at risk of exposing our own uh behavior and our own uh our own uh our own behavior and our own practices, right?
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um all these offshore paradises and all these offshore platforms and so on, and the the illegal sort of really weird framework around flags of convenience and so on benefit everyone, right?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because people profit from it.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: It makes regulation easier to bypass, it makes regulations easier to move around, and to continue these sort of weird and strange behavior we see in the shipping industry, in the um in the in the maritime industry in general.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the moment we over-sanction Russia on this, we will be exposed in a way.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: So do we really want to be exposed and destroy the very infrastructure that is enabling world commerce?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: So hence, you know, the the the very the very natural limits to these sanctions.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: But if we don't continue and further those, specifically targeted against Russia, then nothing will happen, right?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the behavior of the Kremlin will not change.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a very complex uh you know double-edged sword, but this is the sword we have and we have to deal with it.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, thanks, Mathieu.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: And um to conclude, and um I'll perhaps I'll try to um involve into one last question, which is uh the point of uh moving from um connecting the single incident to others.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so, how in this sense, how maybe that's more of a reflection that you might have done in your work, but like how do you think kind of empirical data pattern tracking, also the improvement in these tools, like can actually help policymakers establish that intent and then go beyond like the courtroom standards of proof?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, thanks, Andhra.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Very quickly.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: So as we said here, yeah, cable damage, you know, connecting Finland and uh and Estonia, and then drone incidents in Germany, and then vessel cedar in Belgium, you know, they are all part, you know, uh so they are being handled separately, but they are all part of the same of the same of the same pattern.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then obviously the institutional response that you that that you and and Matthew mentioned, NATO's Baltic Centre, and then um UK LED uh JAF are valuable, but then again designed to detect some specific or discrete sabotage events against some against undersea infrastructure, right?
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: So uh they are in a way not configured to track this cross-domain patterns.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, and this is what what we are we are also trying to do uh here at Acklet.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: So to provide decision makers with this shared event tracking uh infrastructure that that combines these events uh together and and and present them as part of one picture.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Viru.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: Also, because uh we are just at the hour, so uh it's uh um it's time to wrap up.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very grateful for like um for for for the content that our two speakers today uh have uh decided to share with us and uh with uh with all of you kind of uh uh listening.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm um you know, uh I definitely encourage everyone who would like to follow up to reach out.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_02: And of course we can uh uh we can we can try and uh address any any any further questions or any further queries you you might have with uh either either author.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I'll I'll I'll close I'll close here and again with uh another round of thanks.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate your not just the overview of the phenomenon, but also going uh you know behind behind the uh the trends and explaining not just what is driving those trends, but also the dynamics at play and uh and and the potential remedies that policymakers in Europe, in uh kind of the NATO ecosystem and in the West more broadly can uh can uh can undertake.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: So uh thank you, thank you again very much, and uh I uh I uh wish you a nice rest of the day.