Norwegian student and satellites track shadow fleet

Photo: kode24.no

By Marek Grzybowski

Attacks on critical infrastructure and incidents with grey fleets and ships disabling AIS have led NATO and the threatened countries to take action to monitor more closely what is happening at sea. And in Norway, a 24-year-old student has taken up the problem. Jesper Johnsen Loes recently launched MaritimAlarm.no, a website monitoring the activity of civilian Russian ships in the Norwegian economic zone. The system is open, so anyone who has access to the Maritim Alarm website can track ships in the Norwegian Sea that threaten critical infrastructure.

The protection of communication routes, economic zones and infrastructure on the seas and coasts has become a priority. The key nature of security in the Baltic Sea was emphasized by the prime ministers of the Baltic states, on whose initiative the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit was convened in Helsinki. In mid-January, they discussed the security of critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. The meeting resulted in the creation of an initiative for joint defensive and protective actions under the name of Baltic Sentry (“Baltic Guardian” or “Baltic Guard”). The Swedish Minister of Defense reported that the Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, which destroyed two submarine telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea in November, most likely tried to destroy a third one as well. Earlier, Finnish services detained the ship that had breached the communications infrastructure.

The summit was convened by the President of Finland, the Prime Minister of Estonia and the Secretary General of NATO. “We are ready for radical, tough decisions when the security of the Baltic Sea is breached,” said Donald Tusk. Baltic Sentry is the name of a new NATO initiative aimed at curbing undersea attacks, most of which were carried out by merchant ships leaving Russian ports and dragging anchors.

Baltic Sentry will include a range of assets, including frigates, submarines, patrol aircraft and drones. Rutte emphasized the importance of strong law enforcement. He stressed that Finland had shown that decisive action was possible within the law by recently arresting the tanker Eagle S and its crew on suspicion of attacking a cable.

Photo: Finnish Plice

Baltic Sentry – The Baltic Guard will protect infrastructure
“Russia’s use of the so-called shadow fleet poses a particular threat to maritime and environmental security in the Baltic Sea region and around the world. This reprehensible practice also threatens the integrity of undersea infrastructure, increases the risk of chemical munitions dumped at sea, and significantly supports the financing of Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine,” the statement reads.

During the summit, it was decided to extend NATO’s additional protection of the Baltic Sea for 90 days. A joint statement was also signed, among other things, condemning sabotage and the activities of the Russian “shadow fleet.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte co-hosted the summit of Baltic Sea allies, launching new military activity in the region to protect critical infrastructure after a series of ship attacks on pipelines and undersea cables in the Baltic Sea.

NATO will establish a Baltic Guard, the aim of which will be to strengthen security in the Baltic Sea using frigates, patrol aircraft and other types of weapons, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced on Tuesday at a conference in Helsinki during a summit attended by eight countries in the region and the European Commission, PAP reports.

Baltic Sentry is the name of a new NATO initiative aimed at eliminating attacks on the infrastructure of undersea cables and pipelines, most of which were carried out by merchant ships leaving Russian ports. Baltic Sentry will use various types of ships, including frigates, submarines, patrol aircraft and unmanned vessels.

In order to monitor areas with critical infrastructure, the German Navy is sending an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) to the Baltic Sea. The Blue Whale will monitor ship traffic and the seabed, especially near critical infrastructure located there. We inform about it here. Earlier, in mid-January this year. German minehunter FGS Datteln and hydrographic ship HNLMS Luymes of the Royal Netherlands Navy entered the Gulf of Finland as part of the new Baltic Sentry mission, established at the NATO meeting in Helsinki on Wednesday, Finnish public radio Yle and Estonian ERR reported a few days ago.

Rutte stressed the importance of decisive law enforcement. He stressed that Finland had shown that decisive action within the law was possible by recently arresting the tanker Eagle S and its crew on suspicion of attacking a cable. “Shipmasters must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, seizure and arrest,” Rutte said. A joint statement by the heads of state or government of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden stated: “Combating the breakage of submarine cables and pipelines is a global problem.”

Prime Minister Tusk recalled during the meeting in Helsinki that on 27 November 2024, Poland proposed strengthening control in the Baltic Sea, modelled on the “Air Policing” system. The idea was to expand the protection of NATO airspace. Incidents involving Russian and Chinese ships and acts of sabotage on underwater energy installations oblige the Baltic Sea to become an area of ​​strengthened military control within the framework of “Navy Policing”.

Student monitors fleet of shadows

Jesper Johnsen Loes, a 24-year-old geography student, recently launched MaritimAlarm.no, a website that monitors the activity of civilian Russian ships in and around Norway, in order to detect potential threats to Norwegian infrastructure.

The website also tracks the routes of the shadow fleet ships. The ships are identified in real time. Their position is shown exactly in the selected water area. Their unusual activity can trigger alarms, says Kurt Lekanger, a journalist at kode24.

An alarm is triggered when a ship approaches critical infrastructure. If it remains within one nautical mile of the infrastructure for more than an hour or stops transmitting identification information via AIS for more than an hour. An alarm is also triggered if the ship slows down and reaches a speed of 2-5 knots for more than 30 minutes.

After developing the ship tracking system and working on the MaritimAlarm project, its creator decided to make the system open source.

– It is actually the result of my Reddit post, which I wanted to use to gather opinions on the service. Several people suggested that I share it on GitHub, which I had not thought of before – explains the creator of MaritimAlarm, emphasizing: “I came to the conclusion that all these people have incredible knowledge and good ideas that can take MaritimAlarm to the next level, and also be a great source of knowledge for myself”.

In the Baltic Sea, we do not yet have such a warning system for attacks on critical infrastructure. Geography and computer science students, get to work! However, you can already track such threats in the Norwegian Sea and neighboring waters. The project website can be found here: https://maritimalarm.no/