NATO is deploying eyes in the sky and on the Baltic Sea to protect cables and pipelines that stitch together the nine countries with shores on Baltic waters.

An emerging consensus among U.S. and European security services holds that accidents were the cause of damage to Baltic seabed energy and communications lines.

There has been a sharp rise in damage to undersea cables in the Baltic, with at least 11 incidents reported since October 2023.

With its powerful camera, the French Navy surveillance plane scouring the Baltic Sea zoomed in on a cargo ship plowing the waters below — closer, closer and closer still until the camera operator could make out details on the vessel's front deck and smoke pouring from its chimney.