
As Trump negotiates with Putin, NATO fights Russian sabotage of undersea cables
Lt. Cmdr. Sjoerd Knoop, captain of the Luymes, said dragging an anchor along the seabed was an obvious sign of suspicion as the crew searched for saboteurs. 'It's not normal behavior,' he said. Other possible warning signs include sudden changes of speed by the ships in the area around the undersea cables.
Since the launch of Baltic Sentry in mid-January, there have been no clear examples of sabotage. But it's not clear what exactly the warships would do if they did come across an attack. NATO has no law enforcement powers and would likely have to rely on authorities in its member states to carry out arrests and prosecutions once the suspect ship passed through their territorial waters.
'NATO is here in the first place to deconflict and to deter, and we hope with our mere presence anybody who would think about inflicting damage to critical underwater infrastructure will think twice,' said Kockx.
The number of ships involved in Baltic Sentry fluctuates — there were seven vessels involved while NBC News was observing the mission — but all are European. U.S. involvement is limited to reconnaissance aircraft and a small force of Marines equipped with drones deployed to an island off the coast of Finland.
In that sense it appears to meet Trump's demand for a NATO alliance in which European states do more to protect themselves and rely less on the U.S.
But what works for a relatively small-scale naval patrol may not be replicable for the defense of a continent, where European allies rely heavily on advanced American capabilities like anti-missile systems and midair refueling.
Some Europeans fear that Trump's warm words for Putin and his criticism of NATO allies are signs that he is preparing to abandon the traditional U.S. role in Europe's security.
'It is clear that the Americans — or in any case, the Americans in this administration — do not care much about the fate of Europe,' said Friedrich Merz, the incoming chancellor of Germany, in a televised interview hours after his general election victory on Feb. 23.
Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, has said that while the Trump administration remains committed to NATO's core principle of collective defense it was shifting its focus from Europe to the Pacific.
NATO naval officers interviewed by NBC News insisted that the political tensions between the U.S. and its European allies were not filtering down to the operational level. 'We are still NATO, we are one, and we are working together, absolutely,' said Kockx.
At the stern of the Hinnøy, there were what appeared to be three small, bright orange submarines. Each was in fact a different type of underwater drone. They were designed for the ship's original purpose of finding and disarming naval mines.
But they have also proved helpful in giving the crew a detailed look at the undersea cables they are tasked with protecting. One crew member laid an appreciative hand on a Pluto Plus 40, an Italian-made drone about two yards long equipped with several cameras.
'It's a very effective way to get eyes down at the sea bottom,' he said.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


NBC News
19 minutes ago
- NBC News
Los Angeles braces for fourth day of anti-ICE protests
President Donald Trump defended his decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles amid anti-ICE protests. NBC News' David Noriega explains where troops are posted throughout the city and NBC News' Vaughn Hillyard details Trump's fraught relationship with California leaders.


Daily Mail
28 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Ex-Trump comm director's claim about Newsom's political future
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci made a wild claim about California Gov. Gavin Newsom 's political future amid his clash with President Donald Trump over this weekend's riots in Los Angeles . Newsom continued to taunt Trump Monday afternoon after the president returned to the White House and threatened to arrest the Democratic California governor. Scaramucci has supported Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, since his brief tenure in the first Trump White House. 'Gavin has the guts to stand up to these wannabe authoritarians. I will give him that,' Scaramucci posted Sunday night. Scaramucci highlighted a post from Newsom saying that Trump sending 2,000 National Guard troops into Los Angeles County was 'not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis.' 'He's hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control. Stay calm. Never use violence. Stay peaceful,' Newsom said. On Monday Scaramucci reposted Newsom's demand to have the California National Guard returned to the governor's authority. 'I have formally requested the Trump Administration rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in Los Angeles county and return them to my command. We didn't have a problem until Trump got involved,' the Democrat said. 'The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation - this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,' Newsom wrote after Trump made his threat on the South Lawn. Newsom was the one Democratic candidate Trump feared when running against Biden - and later Harris - in the 2024 race, according to Alex Isenstadt's book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power . The ex-president worried that Biden could drop out of the race cuing a Democratic primary. Instead Biden dropped out of the race so late that the party quickly got behind Harris. 'One person he had been worried about was California Governor Gavin Newsom. Always fixated on visuals, Trump thought the handsome, hair-gelled governor was "slick" and the future of the Democratic Party,' Isenstadt wrote. Trump was also annoyed that Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity woud keep having Newsom on his primetime show, Isenstadt said. But in November of 2023, Newsom debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was running against Trump in the Republican primary.

South Wales Argus
an hour ago
- South Wales Argus
Groomed terror suspect not treated as a ‘vulnerable child', says her mother
Rhianan Rudd, who died aged 16, had an 'obsession with Hitler', downloaded a bomb-making manual, and threatened to 'blow up' a synagogue after she was radicalised online by an American neo-Nazi. In the 18 months before she died, Rhianan was diagnosed with autism, investigated by counter-terrorism policing and MI5, and prosecuted over terrorism charges after she had been groomed and allegedly sexually exploited by extremists. Senior coroner Judge Alexia Durran concluded that she was not satisfied that Rhianan intended to end her own life at Chesterfield Coroner's Court on Monday. She said that 'missed opportunities' in Rhianan's case were 'not systemic' and she will not make a prevention of future deaths report. Rhianan was charged with terrorism offences (Family handout/Leigh Day Solicitors) In an interview, Rhianan's mother, Emily Carter, said she believes the teenager's death was preventable and the agencies involved in her case need to be held accountable. Ms Carter said: 'They need to recognise that the way they dealt with things was not the correct way, because she's dead. 'I don't ever want this to happen to another family. This has been devastating. 'If I could save just one child from these people making all their changes and making sure they follow through with everything, there's justice in my eyes – my daughter didn't kill herself for no reason. 'It was just one thing after another basically, but all of them should learn from Rhianan's death, all of them.' Ms Carter said Rhianan was not treated as a vulnerable child, despite her autism diagnosis, and she does not believe her daughter was ever a threat to other people. The mother said: 'She was five foot one, weighed seven stone. She was tiny. 'I don't know what people thought she could do, but I don't believe that she was ever a threat. It was just what people would put in her head – brainwashed her, basically. 'They (the agencies) treated her as a child, but I don't believe they treated her as a vulnerable child. 'If you've got vulnerable children, you take extra steps to watch them, to look after them, to make sure they feel safe, even from themselves, and they didn't. Obviously, she's dead.' Rhianan Rudd was found dead at a children's home (Family handout/Leigh Day Solicitors) The mother said the moment 19 police officers and two detectives came to arrest her daughter at their family home was 'mind-numbing' and she felt 'violated' when officers turned her house 'upside down'. She said: 'It hurt … the fact that they thought that my daughter was some sort of massive terrorist. 'They were going to put her in handcuffs, but the handcuffs didn't go small enough. Even on the smallest ones, they just fell off her hands. That's how small she was.' The inquest heard that the police did not refer Rhianan to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which identifies victims of human trafficking or modern slavery, when they began investigating her in 2020, but the referral was made by Derbyshire County Council in April 2021. Her mother says the NRM referral should have been done 'at the very beginning' because 'they could see that she was vulnerable'. Ms Carter added that she thinks Rhianan should not have been charged, and said: 'She was a child, a vulnerable child. A child with mental health issues. 'She should have been treated as a victim more than anything.' The mother also said it 'angered' her that Rhianan was investigated by MI5 before her death and added: 'If they knew that my daughter was being groomed and sexually exploited online, and then you're investigating at that time, why did nobody come and stop it? 'Why watch a child be completely humiliated, sexualised, trafficked, brainwashed?' Speaking about her daughter's autism diagnosis, Ms Carter said Rhianan would get fixated and 'sucked into' something until it was the 'be all and end all of everything'. She said Rhianan's fixations began with My Little Pony before she became interested in German history, wanted '1940s German furniture in her bedroom', and eventually made contact with extremists on the messaging apps Telegram and Discord. Ms Carter said: 'Finding out that she'd been groomed, and the way these people talked to her … it really changed her wholeness as a person, the way she thinks, the way she feels, everything.' She said that Rhianan was a 'bubbly' girl but she became withdrawn after she was radicalised, and added that the extremists 'took away an innocent child' and 'took away her substance as a person'. She said: 'After she started talking to her so-called friend online – I thought she was talking to gamer friends and friends from school – she started withdrawing. 'She stopped talking about normal things. She wasn't very bubbly, and I'd literally have to drag her out the house.' Rhianan Rudd (left) was aged 16 when she died (Family handout/Leigh Day Solicitors/PA) Ms Carter said she believes Rhianan's death could have been prevented if she was placed in a mental health unit, rather than the children's home, to 'deal with her mood swings, her brain going mad'. She said: 'They don't know a child like a mother does. Even when she was at home, I would wake up two or three times throughout the night and go and check her. These houses aren't guaranteed to do that.' The mother added that it was 'scary' when she referred her daughter to Prevent but she 'knew it had to be done'. She said: 'I was hoping that it was just going to take her two or three times a week to work on her mind, unpick her head, and turn her back into Rhianan. 'Not end up with all these police officers turning up arresting her and pulling my house apart. You don't expect that at all.' The inquest heard that Rhianan took an overdose of her mother's medication after being encouraged to by the 'two competing individuals' in her mind a week before she was charged and moved to the children's home. Recalling that moment, Ms Carter said: 'I go down the stairs and Rhianan was laying on my living room floor. And I actually thought she was dead, but she wasn't. 'She basically called them (an ambulance) when she decided that she changed her mind and didn't want to die.' Ms Carter continued: 'I've made mistakes, and I want the organisations to put their hands up and admit they've made mistakes and to rectify their mistakes so it doesn't happen again. 'And then that way everybody can be happy, except me, because I've already lost my daughter.' Ms Carter described Rhianan as 'loving, kind' and a 'really beautiful soul'. She added: 'Her brother, Brandon, and Rhianan were like two peas in a pod, and he just feels completely lost without her.' Following the inquest, Ms Carter said the family's anguish was increased by hearing that Rhianan was 'let down by the police, the Prevent anti-terror programme, Derbyshire County Council and the mental health bodies'. In a statement read outside Chesterfield Coroner's Court on behalf of Ms Carter by Anna Moore of Leigh Day Solicitors, she added: 'The chief coroner has found that Rhianan was denied access to services which should have supported and protected her and, I believe, could have saved her life. 'Looking at the number of missed opportunities recognised by the coroner, it's hard to see how they cannot have had an impact on Rhianan's state of mind.'