Security challenges in the Baltic region are raising the risk of the Baltic Sea becoming closed off to NATO and the alliance must increase regional co-operation to prevent this from happening, the German Navy’s deputy chief has warned.

Speaking at the Maritime/Air Systems and Technologies (MAST) conference in Copenhagen on 4 September, Vice Admiral Rainer Brinkmann said that in the Baltic region “there is one main challenge and this challenge is Russia”. Western partners “must take appropriate measures to cope with the [challenge]”, he added. “We have to prevent the Baltic Sea from being a ‘mare clausum'” (or ‘closed sea’).

Source: Janes