Status and developments in the Baltic States

The Baltic Sea remains a troubled sea and is the focus of security and defence policy issues. Since the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in autumn 2022, damage to Maritime Critical Infrastructure (MarKRITIS) in particular has brought the Baltic Sea into the public eye. Submarine cables laid on the seabed in particular were damaged on an almost regular basis. Correlations have increasingly been established with the activities of the so-called "shadow fleet": ships with different flags that are linked to the Russian Federation and are used to circumvent sanctions, particularly in view of Russian oil exports. In response to