One of President Putin’s closest allies has warned that Russia could destroy underwater cables that are vital for internet and other global communications in Europe and the United States.
Dmitry Medvedev, the hard-line former Russian president, said that Moscow had the “moral” right to target its enemies’ communications infrastructure because of what he claimed was western complicity in the blasts that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines last year.
“If we proceed from the proven complicity of western countries in blowing up the Nord Streams, then we have no constraints — even moral — left to prevent us from destroying the ocean-floor cable communications of our enemies,” said Medvedev, who has been the deputy head of Russia’s powerful security council since stepping down as prime minister in 2020.
Eight months on from the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines there is still no smoking gun to prove who was behind the unprecedented attack on European energy infrastructure. US media reports claimed that the CIA learnt of a Ukrainian plot to blow up the pipelines and warned Kyiv against doing so. Ukraine has denied any involvement.
Medvedev’s threats come after the head of Nato military intelligence warned last month that there were growing fears that the Kremlin could seek to sabotage undersea cables to punish the West for supplying Kyiv with weapons to drive out Putin’s invading forces.
“There are heightened concerns that Russia may target undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an effort to disrupt western life, to gain leverage against those nations that are providing security to Ukraine,” David Cattler said.
The Kremlin might seek to sabotage undersea cables, which the head of the British armed forces says could be considered an “act of war”
He also said that Russia was “actively mapping” allied critical infrastructure as part of an underwater reconnaissance programme run by the Russian defence ministry. The Russian navy has stepped up patrols in the Atlantic in recent years and increased its activities in the North and Baltic seas, he warned.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the British armed forces, told The Times in January last year that any attack on undersea cables that transmitted internet data could be considered an “act of war”.
A former head of the navy, Radakin warned that “Russia has grown the capability to put at threat those undersea cables” and said there had been a “phenomenal” increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity since Putin took the presidency in 2000.
The Kremlin has said that Britain or the United States orchestrated the Nord Stream blasts, an allegation that both countries have denied. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said: “Only a country or group of countries could have been behind this terrorist attack.”
Medvedev, a fan of western rock music who was once seen as a relative liberal, has transformed into one of Moscow’s biggest hawks since the start of the war. His tirades against western leaders often contain personal insults and he has warned repeatedly that western support for Ukraine risks causing a third world war. “The horsemen of the Apocalypse are already on their way,” he said last year.