Threatens the US – NATO: Moscow supports North Korea’s nuclear program

“In exchange for troops and weapons, Russia supports North Korea in its missile and nuclear programs,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday after a two-day meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels. According to Rutte, this development could destabilize the Korean peninsula and even threaten the US.

After Rutte’s words, the foreign ministers of the 32 NATO countries strongly condemned military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. There is a risk that the regime in Pyongyang will aim the missiles at regional partners such as South Korea and Japan, at Europe and even at the United States, the Dutchman warned. NATO had already confirmed the deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia’s border with Ukraine weeks ago.

NATO fears new serious acts of sabotage and cyber attacks
NATO also fears new serious acts of sabotage and cyber attacks in alliance territory. “We notice that Russia in particular is increasing its willingness to cause physical damage and endanger lives in our countries through sabotage,” a senior official said on the sidelines of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels . China, Iran and North Korea are also active in cyber attacks.

Both the Chinese and Russia waged an ongoing campaign to spread malware. This concerns espionage, but also the potential to cause disruptions when tensions rise. Russia is focusing on critical infrastructure and in particular industrial control systems, the official said.

As an example of a particularly serious cyber attack that has already taken place, the official mentions a massive attack on NATO member country Albania, which was probably carried out by Iran. This paralyzed the border control system and caused all Interior Ministry files to be published on the Internet. “Every police investigation, every email between police officers, every secret witness, every court case and every Interpol file was public,” he explained.

Underwater pipelines are particularly vulnerable
According to the information, the underwater infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to sabotage. “In NATO countries we depend on an extensive network of pipelines and cables,” the NATO official said, referring to gas, oil and data lines. There are more than a million kilometers of this infrastructure, which Russia is continuously mapping through a program started decades ago. This also includes ships, submarines and unmanned and remote-controlled underwater vehicles. The Russians therefore have the ability to plant explosives or cut cables ‘whenever they want’. NATO also considers it problematic that there is an imbalance in vulnerability, because Russia is not nearly as dependent on such infrastructure as the Allies.

Arsons, instrumentalization of refugees and murder plans
The expert mentioned other activities likely controlled by Russia, such as arson, instrumentalizing refugees, attacking railway lines and planning attacks on leading industry representatives. For example, it is likely that the murder of the CEO of Germany’s largest arms company, Armin Papperger, was sometimes planned.

According to information from NATO, Russia should be expected to launch large-scale programs to influence elections in alliance states. As was recently the case in Moldova, the focus could be on the spread of false or misleading information, cyber attacks or vote buying. All this is an organized campaign, the official said.

NATO plans an update of its defense strategy
In response to the developments, the foreign ministers of the NATO countries want to decide on Wednesday on a revision of NATO’s strategy for defense against hybrid threats. This umbrella term includes actions that state and non-state actors use to harm other countries without waging open war. As a rule, they are difficult or impossible to attribute to a specific author.

According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, there should be more exchange of intelligence information and better protection of critical infrastructure. There is also the question of how to deter attacks in the future.

According to the expert, it is high time for action. The problem is that people have become accustomed to the hybrid attacks becoming more intense and frequent, he said. The result is that there has been no appropriate response for a long time.

Most recently, damage occurred within a short period of time to two fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea in November. This concerned a cable running between Sweden and Lithuania and one cable between Finland and Germany. In both cases the cause of this is still unclear. Swedish authorities are investigating possible sabotage. The focus of the investigators is on a Chinese ship called “Yi Peng 3”, which is said to have passed over the affected parts of the cables at the time.