Undersea sensors off the coast of northern Norway that are able to collect data about passing submarines, among other things, have been knocked out, the country’s state-operated Institute of Marine Research, or IMR, has revealed. The cause of the damage is unknown, but the cables linking the sensor nodes to control stations ashore are said to have been cut and then disappeared. This has raised suspicions about deliberate sabotage, possibly carried out by the Russian government, which definitely has
the means to do so.
The IMR, one of the biggest marine research institutes in Europe,
described “extensive damage” to the outer areas of the
Lofoten-Vesterålen (LoVe) Ocean Observatory, putting the system offline. LoVe, which was only declared
fully operational in August 2020, consists of a network of underwater cables and sensors located on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, an area of strategic interest for both Norway and Russia.