Photo: Robert Ghement / EPA-EFE
The crew of a Russian oil tanker has fired on a German military helicopter in the Baltic Sea, German news agency dpa reported on Wednesday.
The Bundeswehr helicopter was reportedly fired at using emergency flares, which are designed to alert other craft to the location of a vessel during an emergency.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock briefly mentioned the incident at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, saying that vessels involved in circumventing international sanctions on Russia had been encountered with increasing frequency in the Baltic Sea lately.
The Bundeswehr helicopter had been on routine patrol in the Baltic Sea amid a rise in hybrid attacks by Russia and its allies, Baerbock said, adding that she thought it was now time to strengthen the monitoring of pipelines and data cables in the Baltic Sea due to the increased threat presented by Moscow in the region.
There has not yet been any official comment from Moscow on the reported incident.
On 17 November, two undersea communication cables that ran between Finland, Germany, Lithuania and Sweden were destroyed in the Baltic Sea, an incident European investigators later blamed on the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3, which was seen at the site of the damage at the time, and which they alleged dragged its anchor across the Baltic Sea floor for more than 180 kilometres, according to The Wall Street Journal,
Intelligence agencies are investigating the possibility that the captain of the Chinese ship may have been “encouraged by Russian intelligence to commit sabotage,” the WSJ said.
