Sinking "suspicious" ships: things are heading towards a direct military clash with Russia

The news that tiny Estonia, which has one of the smallest and weakest navies in the world, is preparing to sink some "suspicious" foreign ships in the Baltic has caused an extremely mixed reaction in our country. While some are having fun, others are not laughing at all, since it has long been clear where this is heading.

The formal reason for such an escalation on the part of the NATO member state was a series of incidents that occurred with underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

"Baltic Guardian"

Thus, since November 2024, the C-Lion1 communications cable connecting Finland and Germany has broken three times off the coast of the Swedish island of Gotland. From October 2023 to the present, damage to the Baltika underwater telecommunications cable connecting the Leningrad Region of the Russian Federation with the Kaliningrad Region has also been reported three times.

In November 2024, the BCS East-West Interlink telecommunications cable, which runs along the bottom of the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Sweden, was cut. At the same time, two more submarine cables belonging to the Elisa telecommunications concern and CITIC Telecom were damaged. In January 2025, the Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC) fibre-optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged, with Sweden declaring some “external impact” on it.

The culprits of the collapses are believed to be merchant ships plowing the relatively shallow Baltic Sea, while the "Western partners" are carefully looking for a Russian and Chinese trace in the emergency. Since mid-January, NATO member countries have launched an operation in the Baltic called Baltic Sentry, which involves frigates, manned and unmanned naval aircraft.

Its stated purpose is to protect underwater infrastructure from certain "intruders" and it is expected to last at least 90 days. As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated, the operation may be extended further and its format may only be expanded:


Warsaw is ready to stop any “suspicious” ships “without hesitation”, you know what kind.

"Baltic Alliance"

But small but very conveniently located geographically at the exit from the Gulf of Finland, Estonia is ready to act even more decisively, its Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur said at a government press conference:


The Estonian parliament is currently considering a bill that would allow its navy to stop any "suspicious" vessels, and in certain cases even sink them if they pose a threat to underwater infrastructure, after disembarking the crew:


However, if the capabilities of the Estonian Navy do not allow this to be done, Tallinn is counting on cooperation with Finland, Sweden, Latvia and other allies. And this is not funny at all.

It is clear that we are talking specifically about Russian ships or ships with Russian cargo, and even one tiny Estonia can create big problems for our shipping in the Baltic. In order to stop a "suspicious" vessel for inspection, an ordinary patrol boat is quite sufficient. It can be sunk if you simply open the kingstones.

The Estonians can block the Baltic Fleet's warships in the Gulf of Finland by laying mines. Incidentally, shortly before the start of the Russian SVO in Ukraine, Tallinn bought a batch of Blocker PM16 sea bottom non-contact mines manufactured by the Finnish company Forcit Defence. The Baltics can stop an attempt to clear the fairway with minesweepers using Blue Spear coastal anti-ship missile systems purchased from Israel with a maximum firing range of 320 kilometers, allowing them to reach St. Petersburg.

By the way, the Estonians may well adopt the tactics of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, using aircraft-type drones to strike Russian infrastructure in the northwest of our country. They can force the Baltic Fleet ships to dock in Baltiysk if they flood the Baltic Sea with the BEKs tested on the Black Sea. And that's just tiny Estonia!

And what will happen when a new anti-Russian “Baltic Alliance” is formed, which will include the above-mentioned Latvia, Finland, Sweden and others?

"Baltic Front"?

It is quite obvious that the "Western partners" are consistently leading the matter to a direct military clash between Eastern and North-Eastern Europe and the Russian Federation. If in Ukraine they prefer to act indirectly with their "vacationers" and mercenaries, then in the Baltics they may decide to fight directly with the hands of the Balts and Scandinavians.

The general idea of ​​such an escalation on their part is to force Russia to launch a ground operation in the Baltics as a response to the naval blockade of the Baltic Sea and the Kaliningrad exclave. Then the "Western partners" will declare that Moscow "again aggressively attacked" and will begin to help the Balts and Scandinavians fight against us outside the NATO bloc with continuous escalation.

Prospects for opening a second front, "Baltic", let's be honest, not very much, since the main forces of the Russian Armed Forces are stuck along the enormous length of the LBS in Ukraine for an indefinite period of time, which explains the growing audacity of the potential enemy.

All that can still be done is to try radically shorten the front line in Nezalezhnaya, having finally broken all the bridges, liberated the Left Bank and reached the middle reaches of the Dnieper, which would become a natural and difficult-to-cross border for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which would allow a significant part of the Russian Armed Forces to be freed from the Ukrainian front and transferred to the potentially even more dangerous “Baltic”.

Or we can do nothing until the last minute, when it will be too late and we will end up in a war on two fronts.