Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands join forces to add extra undersea internet cable as fears of Russian sabotage grow
Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands join forces to add extra undersea internet cable as fears of Russian sabotage grow
Arctic leaders warn of growing risk of hybrid warfare in the far north
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/5668891
Arctic leaders have warned that the threat of hybrid warfare including the sabotage of undersea internet cables by Russia and others is moving from the Baltic Sea to the far north.
Denmark and Greenland plan to build a new data cable between them, and the remote Faroe Islands are in talks to have the line routed through their archipelago to bolster their resilience against potential attacks, according to the prime minister of the islands.
“When you are an island in the middle of the north Atlantic, you are vulnerable,” Aksel Johannesen said. ‘‘We have two telecommunications cables today, and if both are attacked at the same time we do not have any connection with the world.”
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ASeveral cables have been damaged in the Arctic or nearby but no perpetrator has been identified. The cable connecting the Shetland, Orkney and Faroe Islands with Scotland has been damaged three times recently, once in 2022 and twice in 2025, affecting internet availability on the Scottish islands.
A data cable to the Norwegian Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard was damaged in January 2022. Public broadcaster NRK established that a Russian fishing boat crossed it more than 140 times beforehand, but prosecutors shelved the case.
Denmark said last month that it would spend $8.7bn on F-35 fighter jets and boosting Arctic security, including the new cable to Greenland. It added that it would discuss with the Faroe Islands the possibility of connecting the archipelago too.
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[Edit typo.]