Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Poland’s military has intervened after a Russian ship was seen acting “suspiciously” near an undersea electricity cable in the Baltic Sea. The Polish defence ministry says it carried out “effective deterrence” against the ship and will now inspect the seabed.
“A Russian ship from the ‘shadow fleet’ covered by sanctions was performing suspicious manoeuvres near a power cable connecting Poland with Sweden,” announced Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Wednesday afternoon.
“After the effective intervention of our military, the ship sailed to a Russian port,” he continued, adding that a Polish navy survey ship, ORP Heweliusz, was now heading to the site. A deputy defence minister, Cezary Tomczyk, subsequently confirmed that the Heweliusz would carry out a survey of the sea floor.
Rosyjski statek z „floty cieni” objęty sankcjami wykonywał podejrzane manewry w pobliżu kabla energetycznego łączącego Polskę ze Szwecją. Po skutecznej interwencji naszego wojska statek odpłynął do jednego z rosyjskich portów. ORP „Heweliusz” płynie na miejsce zdarzenia.
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) May 21, 2025
Meanwhile, the defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, announced that an emergency meeting would be held on Thursday at the Maritime Operations Centre in the Baltic port city of Gdynia, with Tusk in attendance, reports Polsat News.
Kosiniak-Kamysz confirmed that the incident had happened on Tuesday. Like Tusk, he said that the ship in question was “a tanker that has recently been on the list of ships from the so-called Russian ‘shadow fleet'”.
That term is used to describe ships that Russia operates using concealing tactics in order to evade sanctions – in particular those on oil – imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
The defence minister also made clear that the suspicious activity was “not in Polish territorial waters”, but had occurred “over power cables belonging to PSE”, Poland’s state electricity transmission system operator.
“The operational commander ordered the execution of specific procedures: a patrol flight, deterrence, which was effective… The ship moved away,” added Kosiniak-Kamysz, who also revealed that Poland had informed its NATO allies of the situation.
In January, NATO launched a new military mission to protect critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, an idea that was proposed by Poland last year in the wake of sabotage targeting undersea energy and communication cables.
NATO has launched a new military operation in the Baltic Sea, an idea promoted by Poland last year in response to sabotage targeting undersea cables.@donaldtusk said at today's summit that "all signs point to Russia" being responsible for the damage https://t.co/cBPdL1fKkK
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 14, 2025
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Łukasz Golowanow & Maciek Hypś, Konflikty.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
