It is new and never seen
before at any of the Northern Fleet’s submarine bases along the coast of the
Barents Sea.
By emplacing a floating
boom net, the entrance to the important GUGI base in Olenya Bay north of
Murmansk is partly protected against small drone attacks or enemy submarines on
sabotage or espionage missions.The net goes from surface to seafloor and can
both hold sensors and mines, in addition to serve as a physical underwater
fence.
An image downloaded by the
Barents Observer and taken by the European Union Space Program’s Sentinel-2
satellite from June 11 shows the new barrier. Although the resolution is low,
the cross-bay net is clearly detectable.
JUNE 11: The protection boom net is
crossing the entrance to Olenya bay. On the southern shore, the net starts
where the onshore barbed wired fence ends on the peninsula to the north east of
the base. Image by Sentinel-2, EU space program / Barents Observer
By using the satellite
service’s pixel option to see the difference between water and non-water, the
contour of the protection net is clear. It looks like there is an opening
mid-sea, either to let boats and submarines sailing to and from the base
through or because parts of the net is somewhat deeper in the sea at the time
the image was captured.
Image by Sentinel-2, EU space
program / Barents Observer
Similar
in Sevastopol
After Ukrainian maritime
drones attacked the Black Sea fleet’s naval base in Sevastopol last year,
similar protection booms on the water were put in place. Also, Russia’s naval
port near Novorossiysk has got floating protection layers.
It was a Norwegian
military analyst with the tweeter account The Lookout who was
first to discover the new net in Olenya Bay based on a June 4 satellite
image.
H I Sutton, a British
submarine expert, says the positioning of the net across the entrance to Olenya
Bay “is significant” as the base is very unlike the other submarine bases on
the Kola Peninsula.
“It is clear that it is a
defense,” he writes in an article for Naval News. “It is not
the type used to contain pollution or some other prosaic explanations,” he
argues and concludes: “Russia is hardening its key base in the Arctic.”
Whether or not the
protection net is created to protect against incoming sabotage drones or aimed
to stop US Navy reconnaissance underwater vehicles sailing in from a
mothership in the Barents Sea, is unknown. The Russian defense establishment
never answers questions from the Barents Observer.
Secret
seabed operations
The boom net can easily be
moved by the staff in Olenya when their own vessels, or vessels bound for the
Nerpa shipyard deeper into the bay, sail in or out.
Olenya is home to Russia’s
spy submarines operated by GUGI, the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research
under the Armed Forces.
With deep-diving
nuclear-powered subs, the missions are often top secret. One of the subs
sailing for GUGI from Olenya was the ill-fated Losharik. Conducting
seafloor work in the Motovsky fjord in 2019, the submarine caught fire and the entire crew of 14 officers
were killed.
The “Podmoskovye” special-purpose submarine is based in Olenya. The vessel can carry mini-subs underneath to locations on the seabed where operations happens, like installing or sabotaging sub-sea cables or other underwater work. Photo: Sevmash Shipyard
Olenya is also homeport
for the “Yantar” a modern special survey surface ship used by GUGI
to map gas pipelines in the North Sea and Trans-Atlantic internet cables. The
ship carries a deep-diving submarine, drones and sonar systems. Often when
sailing, the “Yantar” turns off its AIS tracking system, making it
difficult to monitor movements and whereabouts.
In a previous article,
the Barents Observer detailed how Russian spy
ships have increased activities around global data cables with assets from the
Olenya Base on the Kola Peninsula.
Pushing
fear
Attempting to create an
atmosphere of fear, the Kremlin regularly hints to the West about the
vulnerability of seafloor infrastructure.
On Wednesday this week,
Russia’s Deputy head of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, wrote on Telegram that there are no longer any moral
restrictions left “to prevent us from destroying cables of communications of
our enemies, laid along the seafloor.”
Medvedev has over the last
years become a key hardline propaganda voice for the Kremlin, says Eskil
Grendahl Sivertsen, a Norwegian expert on Russia’s cognitive warfare and
influence operations.
Being a close ally of
Vladimir Putin, Medvedev’s threats to attack subsea data cables triggered headlines in Europe
and North America.
“From his current
position, Medvedev frequently employs aggressive anti-Ukrainian and
anti-Western rhetoric in support of Russia’s brutal and illegal war against
Ukraine,” Sivertsen says to the Barents Observer.
“It is not surprising that
his often threatening statements attract media attention in the West, which
again is amplified on social media. As such, he plays a role in Russia’s
propaganda machinery aimed at intimidating, confusing and inducing fear in
Western audiences.”
Eskil
Grendahl Sivertsen works with the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment
(FFI).
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