Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, above, said Poland intervened in the Baltic Sea in May 2025 after a Russian shadow fleet ship acted suspiciously near undersea cables. REUTERS
REUTERS
Poland’s military intervened after a ship from the Russian “shadow fleet” was seen performing suspicious maneuvers near a power cable connecting Poland with Sweden, Poland’s prime minister said in May 2025. NATO has stepped up security in the Baltic after a string of incidents in which power cables, telecommunications links and gas pipelines were damaged in the Russia-Ukraine War in February 2022.
“A Russian ship from the ‘shadow fleet’ covered by sanctions performed suspicious maneuvers near the power cable connecting Poland with Sweden,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X on May 21. “After the effective intervention of our military, the ship sailed to one of the Russian ports.”
Shadow fleet refers to vessels used by Russia to ship oil, arms and grains in violation of international sanctions imposed after the Ukraine war. Speaking later to reporters, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said a patrol flight scared the ship off and said the Polish Navy’s ORP Heweliusz was sailing to the scene.
Vice Adm. Krzysztof Jaworski, Poland’s maritime component commander, told Reuters that the tanker in question was called Sun and it sailed under the Antigua flag. The Russian embassy in Warsaw declined to comment. In the past, Moscow has denied involvement in undersea sabotage in the Baltic.
The 600-megawatt undersea cable links the Swedish coast near Karlshamn with Ustka in northern Poland and allows both grids to rely on cross-border supplies when electricity is cheaper in the other system. A spokesperson for Polish grid operator PSE said the cable was working. PSE data showed over 600 megawatts were flowing to Sweden through the cable in late May.
“This shows how dangerous the times we live in are, how serious the situation in the Baltic Sea is,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said at a May 21 news conference.
“Since Sweden and Finland joined the North Atlantic Alliance, the Baltic Sea has become a key marine area, where the largest number of incidents occur, the most common incidents related to cable breaks … and sabotage.”
He vowed a “firm response” from Poland and NATO to any attack on Baltic Sea infrastructure. Stockholm, asked about the incident, said Swedish authorities were ready to respond to developments in the vicinity.