Overview
- This spring, Britain, Norway and the United States tracked Russian GUGI vessels near Svalbard after discovering a covert exercise that simulated a device to disable subsea cables.
- Allied forces confronted the ships at sea and say they forced them to leave without any cables being damaged.
- Western officials reported that Russia’s Main Directorate for Deep‑Sea Research used deep‑sea submersibles to rehearse deploying the weapon in a way designed to leave little trace.
- Norway publicly warned Moscow that covert attacks on critical infrastructure will be detected and met with consequences while Washington and London have sanctioned GUGI and increased Arctic patrols.
- The episode adds to rising concern about ships mapping seabeds and a string of recent cable incidents, and it has pushed plans to harden links such as a new Svalbard-to-mainland cable by 2028 to protect global internet and satellite traffic.