Dutch military could soon board Russian vessels threatening North Sea

The Dutch Cabinet is increasingly concerned about Russian ships threatening North Sea infrastructure and involved Ministers are pondering additional measures, including potentially boarding suspicious ships, the Telegraaf reported.

“There are indications that Russia has had sabotage committed. You see all kinds of reports about submarine cables that have been damaged,” Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp (NSC) told the newspaper. The threat is increasing and the Dutch government wants to act more assertively.

Last year, the Ministry of Defense diverted 20 Russian ships from the North Sea, compared to 11 the year before. Veldkamp believes this is just the tip of the iceberg. “Last year, Russia was probably involved in at least 37 attempts at sabotage, vandalism, influencing, and murder in Western Europe. By comparison, there were 13 in 2023, and only six in 2022,” he told the newspaper.

“I would very much like to act more assertively when it comes to the situation in the North Sea,” Veldkamp said. “For example, that you board a ship preventively, but that may not be in line with international maritime law. And we have to pay close attention to what we are doing.” The consequences need to be examined closely before the government acts, he said. “So that we do not create wrong precedents that could cause problems for us elsewhere in the world, such as the South China Sea, in the future.”

Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans (VVD) agrees that the espionage and sabotage threat is increasing and that action is needed. “The threat is piling up and that requires NATO to respond adequately. And that we, with 32 countries, also maintain unity in this.”

According to Brekelmans, the Netherlands is already taking action by contributing to the NATO fleet to ensure a stronger presence on the North Sea. “We also use drones and satellite images to map what is happening there, so that Russian ships can be better seen. And so that they do not get away undisturbed,” he said.

“But when it comes to what we can do against those ships, we will have to look very carefully at how we can expand the local scope of this,” Brekelmans told the newspaper, adding that the government is investigating this. “I have had my Baltic colleagues visit and have spoken to the British Minister of Defense, and we are working closely together on that. We should not all be reinventing the wheel separately.”