L’equipaggio di una nave russa spara con munizioni di segnalazione durante lo schieramento della Bundeswehr

In the Baltic Sea region, tensions between Russia and the Western states are escalating. During a deployment of a Bundeswehr helicopter, shooting is fired from a Russian ship. Foreign Minister Baerbock announces more patrols to protect critical infrastructure.

In the Baltic Sea, there was an incident between a Bundeswehr helicopter and a Russian ship. The crew of the Russian ship had fired with signal ammunition, the dpa news agency in Brussels learned. The helicopter was on the way to reconnaissance.

Earlier, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) had briefly mentioned the incident on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels. However, she did not give details. When this incident occurred is not yet known.

The use of signal ammunition is actually only common in emergency situations. Baerbock had pointed out that there are always ships on the way in the Baltic Sea that are involved in the evavention of sanctions due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

Baerbock announces more patrols

The Green politician also announced that the monitoring of pipelines and data cables in the Baltic Sea is to be strengthened. The protection of critical infrastructure by patrols should be expanded, she said. The reason is the increase in hybrid attacks from Russia and its supporters.

As examples, Baerbock mentioned the destruction of cables, the disruption of the global position determination system GPS and the incident with the German Bundeswehr helicopter and the tanker.

Tensions in the Baltic Sea

Most recently, damage to two fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea occurred in November within a short time. This was a cable that runs between Sweden and Lithuania and one between Finland and Germany. The cause of this is still unclear in both cases. The Swedish authorities are investigating for possible sabotage. The focus of the investigators is on a Chinese ship called “Yi Peng 3”, which is said to have passed the affected parts of the cables at the time in question. Earlier last year, a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged.

After the damage to the communication cables in the Baltic Sea, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk had recently proposed joint surveillance of the sea by the navy of the western bordering states.

In addition to Russia, China, North Korea and Iran in particular are accused of wanting to weaken states in Europe with so-called hybrid attacks. This umbrella term summarizes actions that use state or non-state actors to harm other countries without waging an open war. As a rule, they are difficult or not at all to assign to a specific author.

What are signal ammunitions when we are talking about a warship?
Isn’t it a kind of smoke grenade ? Did they shoot an helicopter with that?

Once again:

When do we start to shoot back?

It’ll be raming next