Threat of war. Is the EU provoking war with Russia in the Baltic Sea? The EU is illegally seizing tankers carrying Russian oil in international waters. Some days this almost led to an armed clash.

The EU is illegally seizing tankers carrying Russian oil in international waters in the Baltic Sea. Just over a week ago, such an incident almost led to an armed clash. How the EU is trying to provoke a war with Russia in the Baltic Sea and drag NATO into it.

by Anti-Spiegel

24 May 2025, 6:00 a.m.

As is so often the case, what is currently happening in the Baltic Sea – and, above all, how important it is – can only be understood by looking at the chronology of events. There are currently increasing reports of a ‘growing Russian threat in the Baltic Sea’, which Foreign Minister Wadephul, for example, warned about again a week ago.

So let's take a look at the background. And I must warn you that this article will again be very long, but unfortunately that is unavoidable in order to understand the subject.

Nord Stream and Balticconnector

On 26 September 2022, both pipeline strings of Nord Stream 1 and one of the two pipeline strings of Nord Stream 2 were blown up near Bornholm. As is well known, the incident was never clarified and, as is also well known, the German government stonewalled parliamentary questions about the explosion.

A year later, on 8 October 2023, another pipeline, the Balticconnector, which runs from Finland to Estonia through the Baltic Sea, was damaged. Immediately afterwards, European politicians and media accused Russia of probably sabotaging the pipeline, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on 11 October 2023 that NATO would take decisive action if it turned out that the damage to the pipeline was a ‘deliberate attack’.

However, it quickly became clear that Russia had nothing to do with it, although this was not reported in such big headlines by the media, and naturally no European politician apologised for having accused Russia without foundation.

In fact, the Chinese ship ‘New Polar Bear’ had damaged the pipeline with its anchor, which is not uncommon. The pipeline was repaired and put back into operation in April 2024, with the damage covered by insurance.

Damaged submarine cables

From the end of 2024, Western media reported on every instance of damage to submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, giving the public the impression that damage to submarine cables was something rare and unusual, as there had previously been virtually no media reports of such damage. In fact, damage to deep-sea cables is completely normal and routine.

Every year, there are an average of 150 to 200 incidents of damage to the global network of submarine cables, which is not much when you consider that 1.4 million kilometres of cable are laid in the world's oceans. Seventy to eighty percent of the damage is man-made, for example, the (sometimes unintentional) dropping of anchors or the dragging of trawl nets that get caught on the cables. Only 10 to 20 percent of the damage is related to nature, for example, when cables wear out because they rub against rocks due to currents.

Damage to underwater cables is so common that a fleet of special repair ships is on standby, strategically positioned around the world so that they can reach any damage site within 10 to 12 days and repair the damage.

The Baltic Sea is the most densely ‘wired’ sea in the world, with countless data and power lines and pipelines running through it. As a result, the Baltic Sea is affected by cable damage several times a year, but this has never made the headlines because it is normal and such damage is routinely repaired and the cables and pipelines are, of course, insured.

Putting the desired narrative out into the world

But apparently, someone at NATO or the EU had the idea in 2024 to portray any cable damage as Russian sabotage and bring it to the media's attention. So all they had to do was wait, because there are several cases of cable damage in the Baltic Sea every year. They didn't even have to take any action themselves; they just had to wait for the next incident.

And they didn't have to wait long. In November 2024, two cables were damaged within two days, and politicians and media in the West began accusing Russia of sabotage. Federal Defence Minister Pistorius stated:

"No one believes that these cables were cut by accident. We must therefore conclude – without knowing specifically who is responsible – that this is a hybrid attack.‘

The then Federal Foreign Minister Baerbock agreed and spoke of a hybrid attack. This could not ’all be mere coincidence,‘ she said, referring to ’intimidation attempts" and naming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Finnish Foreign Ministry and the Foreign Office in Berlin expressed ‘deep concern,’ and Poland, France, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom echoed this sentiment. In a joint statement, the ministers of the five countries and Baerbock accused Russia of ‘systematically attacking the European security architecture.’ The government in Moscow is intensifying its ‘hybrid activities against NATO and EU states to an unprecedented extent and diversity, which entails considerable security risks,’ the statement continued, which was also endorsed by Kaja Kallas, the current EU chief diplomat.

The desired narrative was thus out in the world and was diligently repeated by politicians and the media thereafter.

The fact that only two months later, on 19 January 2025, it became known that the cable damage was not caused by sabotage was conveniently ignored by the German media, which instead reported on 26 January about further cable damage – and, of course, the finger was quickly pointed at Russia (again, without any evidence) in order to further fuel the desired narrative of Russian sabotage of European infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

The fabricated pretext

There is a reason why this narrative was needed. It had already been decided to block the Baltic Sea to Russian ships and ships trading with Russia in the future. Such a measure, if actually implemented, would inevitably lead to a Russian response. Therefore, the public had to be prepared for the blockade of the Baltic Sea as a supposedly justified measure and that any attempts by Russia to defend itself would naturally be another ‘unprovoked Russian aggression.’

In February 2024, Estonia received Israeli Blue Spear anti-ship missiles with a range of almost 300 kilometres. A glance at the map shows that Estonia could use these missiles to block the northern Baltic Sea to Russian ships. The Russian city of St. Petersburg, with its ports, is only about 100 kilometres away from the Estonian-Russian border as the crow flies, and the passage through the Baltic Sea between Estonia and Sweden is also only a little more than 100 kilometres wide.

On 17 September 2024, the Estonian National Broadcasting Corporation published an interview with Estonian General Vahur Karus, who heads the country's joint military staff. In the interview, the general stated very openly that Estonia's armed forces had been ordered by NATO to prepare for a possible military conflict between NATO and Russia. Estonia would then be required to attack targets on Russian territory. His statements are consistent with the fact that Estonia has recently been receiving increased deliveries of HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and French Caesar howitzers.

At the same time, the commander of the Estonian armed forces, Major General Andrus Merilo, said in an interview that the Finnish and Estonian military commands intend to finalise plans on how they could prevent the activities of the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Baltic Sea ‘if necessary’ and in an ‘extreme situation’. The exact words were:

‘Maritime defence is an area in which Finland and Estonia will continue to expand their cooperation, and perhaps we can develop more concrete plans on how, if it is literally necessary, we can completely prevent enemy activities in the Baltic Sea.’

Merilo specified that this was militarily possible. When asked by journalists in what situation the Finnish Sea could be closed to Russia, Merilo replied that this would depend on the security situation.

Four days later, on 21 September, there was a fierce attack on the Russian city of Toropez, in which a Russian ammunition depot was reportedly destroyed. Officially, the attack was carried out from Ukraine using Ukrainian-made long-range drones. These drones had to travel 400 kilometres along the Russian-Belarusian border. At the same time, however, Toropez is only a hundred kilometres from Latvia and 150 kilometres from Estonia.

The breach of contract

On 21 October 2024, Germany broke the 2+4 Treaty on German reunification by opening a ‘maritime tactical headquarters for NATO’ in Rostock. That was the official designation used by the German Ministry of Defence in its press release. This was a clear breach of the 2+4 Treaty, Article 5 of which states unequivocally with regard to the territory of the former GDR:

‘Foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons or their carriers shall not be stationed or transferred to this part of Germany.’

This indisputable and open breach of contract quickly became so embarrassing to the German media and NATO that the media subsequently secretly rewrote their reports on the new NATO base in Rostock and NATO deleted its press release on the matter. The NATO press release clearly stated that the staff set up in Rostock ‘coordinates naval activities in the Baltic Sea region with allies and provides them with a joint maritime situation picture around the clock,’ which is an indisputable breach of the 2+4 Treaty.

The new NATO base in Rostock was thus obviously part of the apparently long-prepared plans to block the Baltic Sea for Russia, for which, starting in November 2024, reports of alleged sabotage of undersea cables by Russia were to be used as a pretext to explain to the public that this step was allegedly necessary and justified.

The breach of the 2+4 Treaty is now becoming the norm, as the annual NATO manoeuvre Baltic Operations, or BALTOPS for short, begins in early June, with 30 international warships and thousands of soldiers and even a US aircraft carrier expected in Warnemünde. What about the passage in the 2+4 Treaty stating that no foreign armed forces may be stationed in the former GDR?

Another pretext that politicians and the media have been putting forward in recent months is what is known in the West as the ‘Russian shadow fleet’, which Russia uses to export its oil, which is even described as ‘illegal’ by the German media because the EU has sanctioned the export of Russian oil. In reality, these unilateral sanctions are illegal, because sanctions that are legal and binding under international law can only be imposed by the UN Security Council.

It is also claimed that the tankers of the ‘shadow fleet’ are old and therefore pose an environmental risk, in order to construct another media pretext for taking action against the tankers.

Piracy in the Baltic Sea

This allowed the tankers of the ‘shadow fleet’ to be presented in the media in several narratives. First, the tankers are allegedly damaging cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea on behalf of Russia; second, they are allegedly transporting Russian oil illegally; and third, they are allegedly an environmental risk. This has succeeded in giving the European public the impression that action against these tankers is not only necessary but even legal.

The European public was thus prepared for the next step in the escalation. And it did not take long.

In mid-March 2025, Germany seized the Panamanian-flagged tanker Eventin, which was carrying 100,000 tonnes of Russian oil.

 The ship initially drifted north of Rügen, unable to manoeuvre, and was then towed to waters off Sassnitz, where it was monitored by the German coast guard and federal police. In mid-March, German customs seized the ship and the oil, citing EU sanctions against Russian oil exports, which sounded like this in Der Spiegel:

‘The German government has decided to take robust action against a tanker belonging to the secret shadow fleet with which Russia continues to sell oil worldwide despite the sanctions in force. (...) The unusually harsh action is intended, in the view of the Chancellery and the Foreign Ministry, to send a signal to Russia that Germany will not stand idly by and watch Russian oil transit through the Baltic Sea.’

This wording, chosen for German readers, was intended to suggest that the German government was acting within the law. However, the opposite is true, because only the UN Security Council has the right to legally impose sanctions and, if necessary, enforce them by force. Neither Germany nor the EU nor NATO have this right; if they do so without sanctions from the UN Security Council, it is simply piracy under international law.

At the beginning of April 2025, Estonia followed suit. A bill was introduced in the Estonian parliament that would allow the Estonian military to sink civilian ships that the Estonian government believes pose a threat to national security. The bill stipulates that military and naval commanders must only notify the shipowner or its flag state after using force.

It would be an act of war if the Estonian military attacked and sank a civilian ship of another state without warning. Even before the law was finally passed, Estonia took action and on 11 April also seized a ship that, according to the Estonian government, was transporting Russian oil.

On 13 April, I published an article on this subject entitled ‘Preparations for war – The planned blockade of the Baltic Sea and the role of the Baltic states’, in which I reported in detail on the provocations against Russia and the obvious attempts to blockade the Baltic Sea and thus force Russia into a military response.

And last week, the next step in this escalation followed.

Russian fighter jet forced to protect tanker

On 13 May 2025, incidentally just two days before the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations planned in Istanbul, the Estonian navy attempted – once again – to capture a tanker on its way to Russia. The Estonian military attempted to force the tanker ‘Jaguar’ to leave international waters and enter Estonian territorial waters. There, Tallinn would have had the legal authority to detain the ship, as the German authorities did with the tanker ‘Eventin’ in March.

Estonian marines began ramming the tanker with a patrol boat and twice attempted to deploy troops from a helicopter onto the ship. They also brought naval aircraft to the ship, but the crew continued on course towards the Russian port of Primorsk.

This time, Russia did not stand idly by and sent a fighter jet to support the tanker, which drove away the Estonian military. Der Spiegel distracted its readers from the background to the incident by headlining its article on the incident ‘Violation of NATO airspace – Russian fighter jet enters Estonian airspace’ and claiming in the article itself that the ship was ‘illegally sailing without a flag.’ And to give the impression that Western sanctions are legal, the Spiegel article ended as follows:

‘The Jaguar is one of more than 100 ships in Russia's “shadow fleet”. This is the term used by Western countries to describe ships that Moscow is said to be using to circumvent international sanctions.’

“International” sanctions sound much more serious to Spiegel readers than ‘European’ sanctions.

In this incident, there was very little to prevent an armed clash between NATO forces and a Russian fighter jet.

The incident was undoubtedly provoked by Estonia, which attempted to force a foreign ship out of international waters into its territorial waters by force, which is an act of piracy under international law, even if this time it was ‘only’ an attempted act of piracy.

Russia, on the other hand, acted legally by responding to a distress call from a merchant ship in international waters and protecting the ship from the threat.

But NATO and the EU seem to want to provoke an armed incident with Russia in the Baltic Sea, because the incident was by no means a reason for Europeans to ‘shift down a gear’ – on the contrary. And the media accompanied this with another campaign.

Another media campaign

Two days after the incident, said the chairman of the EU Military Committee, Robert Briger, after a meeting of EU chiefs of staff, that the EU did not yet have sufficient resources in terms of ships and aircraft to launch a mission to intercept tankers carrying Russian oil. So far, he said, ‘no political mandate has been received to launch such a mission.’ However, if the task were assigned, it would be necessary to ‘have the necessary resources at our disposal.’

The EU military is thus already running through such a mission to let politicians know how many ships and aircraft would be needed in the Baltic Sea. It is therefore likely only a matter of time before such a mission is ordered.

Until then, the public must continue to be prepared for it, and this is being done diligently.

On 16 May, for example, Der Spiegel published an article with the headline ‘German Armed Forces in Lithuania – Russian spy plane detected during NATO exercise’ and wrote in the introduction:

"According to SPIEGEL information, Russia has attempted to spy on communications during a NATO exercise in Lithuania. Inspector General Breuer sees the incident as proof of how real the threat from Moscow is."

For some reason, Der Spiegel forgot to mention in the article that NATO flies spy planes along the entire Russian border every day and that NATO routinely monitors every Russian manoeuvre with its spy planes.

On 17 May, Der Spiegel ran the headline ‘Suspected acts of sabotage – Foreign Minister Wadephul warns of growing Russian threat in the Baltic Sea’ and wrote in the introduction to its article:

‘Cut cables, disrupted signals: Russia's shadow fleet is linked to numerous possible acts of sabotage. Foreign Minister Wadephul now speaks of a further escalation of the threat.’

Although there has been no incident involving a submarine cable in the Baltic Sea for months, and although there has been no actual evidence pointing to Russia in any case, German media and politicians are keeping the issue in the headlines because it is only a matter of time before another cable is damaged in the Baltic Sea, as this has been happening several times a year for as long as anyone can remember. And then, of course, Russia will be blamed again – without any evidence – further cementing the image of Russia as an enemy in the public eye.

Poland announces further escalation

On 21 May, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke of ‘suspicious activities by a sanctioned ship’ in the vicinity of a submarine cable connecting Poland and Sweden. According to the Polish Ministry of Defence, the ship was in international waters and allegedly changed course under pressure from the Polish Air Force. And one day later, at a meeting with Polish Navy commanders, Tusk said that the Baltic Sea could become a place of permanent confrontation between Russia and the West. He said that ‘suspicious incidents near infrastructure facilities will become increasingly frequent’ in the Baltic Sea.

On the same day,the Polish Foreign Ministry stated that Poland would work during its presidency of the Baltic Sea Council to draft proposals to amend international maritime law in the region to allow ships to be detained in neutral waters. The initial focus would be on ‘legal solutions that would make it possible to detain ships belonging to the “shadow fleet”’. The ministry spokesman added that Warsaw would ‘present radical solutions’, and Foreign Minister Sikorski said that the proposals would be drawn up during Poland's presidency of the Baltic Sea Council, which begins on 1 July.

Also on 22 May, German Chancellor Merz was in Lithuania visiting the German brigade that is to be established there, where he gave a bellicose speech about ‘aggressive Russian revisionism’.

Der Spiegel accompanied this with an article headlined ‘New Bundeswehr combat force in Lithuania – Only a 70-kilometre-wide corridor leads to allies’, in which it played out a war in the Lithuania-Poland-Kaliningrad-Belarus region, followed a day later by another Spiegel article on the Bundeswehr in Lithuania with the headline "Merz and Pistorius in Vilnius – Where Bundeswehr soldiers now face Russia".

Is it just me, or does the fact that German media and politicians are now talking openly about a war with Russia and celebrating the return of German soldiers to the Russian border remind us of a period in German history that we all believed would never return?

Author: Anti-Spiegel

Thomas Röper, born in 1971, has held executive and supervisory board positions as an expert on Eastern Europe in financial services companies in Eastern Europe and Russia. Today, he lives in his adopted home of St. Petersburg. He has lived in Russia for over 15 years and speaks fluent Russian. His media-critical work focuses on the (media) image of Russia in Germany, criticism of Western media reporting in general, and (geo)politics and economics.

https://t.me/AntiSpiegel

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