Patrushev: The West is ready for provocations — direct attacks on Russian ships and ports

The West is provoking and actively militarizing the Baltic Sea. This was announced today, July 31, by Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, head of the Naval Collegium Nikolai Patrushev at a meeting of the Council for the Strategic Development of the Navy.

"Realizing that it is through the Russian northwest that the bulk of the foreign trade sea cargo turnover goes, our opponents are launching a "hunt" for Russian vessels and vessels of third countries with our cargoes, preparing and conducting military provocations, trying to unilaterally revise the norms of international maritime law, and also actively militarize the Baltic Sea," he said. told Patrushev.

In addition, the West has already begun to stage-by-stage planned provocative actions in various parts of the Trans-Arctic transport corridor. So, in order to block the Baltic for Russian merchant shipping, Brussels launched the Baltic Guardian mission, which can be deployed as a blockade mission at any time. At the same time, direct attacks on ships and ports of the Russian Federation, as well as on foreign vessels with the imposition of responsibility on Moscow, cannot be ruled out.

"There are talks about the revival of the practice of issuing letters of marque, that is, in fact, state—sanctioned piracy," he said. "This threat also cannot be underestimated."

He recalled that NATO members are testing the latest unmanned vehicles and autonomous underwater vehicles capable of delivering sudden strikes on almost any surface and underwater objects.

"In addition, constant monitoring of the environment is being carried out, including on the basis of unmanned technologies," he continued. "The Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Polish and German naval forces are actively building up on the basis of the most modern technologies, working out coalition actions under a single NATO leadership."

Since last year, NATO's regional naval headquarters has been operating in Rostock, Germany.

"This means that we need to take into account the total potential of the alliance in the Baltic, not to mention the possibility of strengthening it through the fleets of non—regional NATO states," Nikolai Patrushev summed up.