European Infrastructure in the Russo-Chinese Crossfire: How to Protect Energy Infrastructure

European Infrastructure in the Russo-Chinese Crossfire: How to Protect Energy Infrastructure

hello and welcome to the European resilience initiative Center video podcast today our guest is Benjamin Schmidt he is a senior fell at the University of Pennsylvania he’s also a senior fellow for Democratic resilience at the center for European policy analysis sea and he served as a European energy security advisor at the US Department of State welcome Benjamin hi great to be here great to have you on on board today and you’re pretty busy now with all the travels between all the US and Europe we have recently visited an event in Germany where you held a great speech in what is resilience energy resilience for Europe and for the west but what are the parts of our security is it only hard security soft security our markets where we buy energy what is energy resilience about well look Sergey there’s there’s a lot to talk about here because as I’ve said for a long time um European energy security is far more than what sometimes uh you know people get into the economic only or the what I call the Bloomberg terminal approach there’s a uh a wide multidisiplinary um skill set that’s needed to really address all of the aspects uh to make sure Europe has um you know clean reliable fuel that is not part of a political agenda agenda of another country in particular the Russian Federation who has used energy for many years uh to spread malign influence and strategic corruption and Elite capture uh throughout the European continent so there’s a lot to look at here from hard Security in terms of physical infrastructure protection soft security which is countering corruption and uh you know countering Elite capture and and things like this and and then of course um all of the the elements that come with uh the the energy transition as we as we address the climate crisis so there’s there’s a lot to talk about here and a lot that Europe needs to continue to do to uh make sure that it has um you know resilient and re reliable um energy infrastructure uh as we move forward here when we are talking about energy security infrastructure security uh the first idea which CES uh on mind is northstream 2 pipeline explosion like Germany invested a lot into Ty Russia to Germany as the German politicians said that the Russians have interested to sell their gas to us they will never do something bad and then boom and uh Russia says okay we don’t sell any gas to you because there reasonal function on the pipeline look how high are your energy prices now but is the security of our energy infrastructure is it only under sea uh pipelines and terminals or something else and even if if it is only under sea pipelines how safe are they there’s a lot to talk about here and and obviously since uh even a few months and a few weeks before Russia’s large scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 the Spectre of uh physical infrastructure attacks and concerns about physical security of energy infrastructure across Europe um really started to to get in in the headlines and we saw this uh you know in terms of offshore infrastructure whether it’s energy or telecommunications um you know we saw this in starting in the baren sea just a few weeks before Russia’s large scale invasion of Ukraine where uh investigators from Nordic uh public broadcasting found um that a uh a vessel had been basically uh driving over the top of a fiber optic telecommunications cable connecting spard and a the spalat facility which is a um High latitude commercial satellite uplink facility and the largest of its kind on Earth uh and able to reach all you know 15 or so of the uh the polar um orbital trajectories for for satellite commercial Communications um and they found uh after this had been cut uh they found several months later that AIS data showed that a Russian fishing vessel had made something like 130 passes over the point at which this cable was was cut and and so you know this this is a strategic uh cable even though it’s you know a commercial site uh look at all of the areas of you know the commercial space industry that have supported Ukraine um since the outset of Russia’s large scale Invasion whether it be geospatial imagery from companies like planet and maxar uh telecommunications uh and and internet based uh satellite based internet from companies like SpaceX and and you know spacex’s starlink so you know this is I think that was the warning shot and then of course we saw uh we saw the nordstream blast in September of 2022 we saw the uh the Balta connector pipeline the cut in uh October of 2023 um and so those are are kind of you know a few of those those incidents of course with the Baltic connector we also saw telecommunication cables between Sweden and Estonia get caught and Finland and Estonia get caught so quite a bit of infrastructure has been disrupted in in the uh the barrance and the the Baltic seas in this case uh but Sergey we’ve also seen it onshore right we’ve seen uh energy infrastructure damaged in Germany we saw uh earlier this year reports emerge that the pipeline that was under construction between BRB the um the floating storage and regasification unit or floating floating LG facility that’s in Bruns uh and the town of hetling in near hurg um there was B basically a pipeline being built to bring gas that was being regasified from Global LK markets through that new pipeline to the German grid well guess what investigators found that they that that had been damaged there were holes drilled in that pipeline that’s an onshore Pipeline and then of course we’ve seen many many um incidents over the past two years that have gone unattributed in Germany of rail traffic being disrupted by physical infrastructure attacks where power lines have been cut uh in coordinated manners you know quite quite a ways away from each other as these things have gone on uh up to uh the fact that I was in Bon giving a talk on critical infrastructure protection and energy security uh in January of this year and I had to leave early because the high-speed rail line from zigor bond to the Frankford of flu coffin uh when I looked down in my Deutsche Bond app it was showing you know physical infrastructure attack sabotage basically was the reason that um this line had been shut down so I had to leave a critical infrastructure protection conference early to get home because of critical infrastructure attack that took place that morning so you know we we saw that in the in the news again has gone unattributed but that was power lines again getting cut to um you know to damage Transportation infrastructure so we’ve seen energy infrastructure get hit we’ve seen telecommunications infrastructure get hit we’ve seen Transportation infrastructure get hit we’ve seen it all across Europe uh in in both the onshore and the offshore so there’s a lot of work that we need to do to make sure that we you know respond to this this clear and and Rising threat and uh of course uh when we see that there are a lot of uh events like remember 2014 explosion on uh in czechia on ammunition warhouse where several employees died then in Bulgaria recently uh minor explosions in the US and in the UK but still on ammunition production sites which are extremely important for the war against Russian aggression and um anyone can say look it is like it’s just an incident uh it’s coincidence they have no proofs that the Russians were behind it but even if there were no Russians we see the density of these uh of these attacks deliberate attacks you have described the drill TOS they don’t Ur because the materials failure or because of the temperature uh differences there is a sabotage can we protect our infrastructure from several attacks against it when they are being perpetrated by people who really want to induce maximum of damaged to our way of life yeah well that’s that’s really what the uh the work that is um you know that is that is Central to a lot of European countries in particular I you know I’ve focused on in my my year-long research project with the University of Pennsylvania’s clim Center for Energy policy on critical infrastructure protection in the the Baltic the North and the seas and in particular I visited almost every country around the Baltic Sea to talk about and visit various infrastructure that has uh you know that has has not been hit uh and learning best practices from uh from cables and pipelines that are are still operating and I’ve also done case studies on nordstream and Baltic connector and uh and other cables that have been struck uh in in the hopes of understanding a little bit better the forensics around um how these incidents occur uh what the GE political impacts are what the you know the physical security impacts are and what the market impacts are in order to hopefully build out some policies uh that Europe can uh can take and and are taking um to better respond to and and deter these these attacks and one of the first things that I saw that that Europe did which was really great was that NATO set up an um an offshore infrastructure uh protection physical protection Center of Excellence uh and um basically NATO headquarters I suppose it wasn’t a center of excellence but rather a cell they have a lot of different names for these things but the bottom line is they um they’re they’re working on policies for this and then they have an operational arm that’s being set up at marcom in London um and so I think that together those two areas are are really going to be important um to start leading and trying to trying to synergize some of the data and some of the cooperation that’s needed around Europe in particular for NATO Partners to make their energy and Telecommunications and transportation infrastructure uh a lot more um more resilient and uh and hopefully deter attacks in the process because you know we see a lot of these these incidents happening in locations that are you know are hard to monitor continuously right and and so we have situations where in the Baltic see you know adjacent literal States you know bordering states don’t have even the same types of of uh government structures set up to respond to these sort of attacks right Denmark has a police force but no Coast Guard Sweden has a coast guard right next door and right and so they they both have navies and so there’s a lot of different sort of areas um that these different um different uh different NATO member states can do to try to better integrate um their own response capabilities and and coordinate across member states but at the same time make sure that the uh you know the total domain awareness uh for the maritime environment is covered right and what I mean by that is you have navies that operate everything from you know satellites uh to aircraft to surface ships to subc uh monitoring you know submarines and and um and other monitoring equipment below the sea you have coast guards that have you know planes and surface ships but nothing that that can go under the sea and then you have uh of course the uh infrastructure operators themselves that gain a lot of data right that don’t necessarily feed into the National Security apparatus of of each of these member states um you know when when you look at a um you know a a power cable that’s going across the Baltic Sea it also may have a fiber optic line to to monitor it and that can can offer key um hydroacoustic data for the potential to track and understand who may be behind certain um certain taxs or or even to you know try to Monitor and then send out response teams before they before an incident even happens uh and so that’s a thought of of the case is to try to to make sure that all of this data gets synergized into one location so that National responders can have this total domain awareness for the infrastructure what’s going on around the infrastructure what’s happening in the water column and what’s happening on the surface and above um and one other area Sergey that I’ve been very interested in um trying to uh you know connect two industries is the burgeoning uh commercial space industry which has a lot of you know the abilities that governments had just five years ago that are now at your and my fingertips right we can have planet and Max our accounts that can give us high resolution satellite data um you know at a moment’s notice that we you know we only saw in the domain of militaries and intelligence agencies in the past and and now look this is this is something that companies can buy into as well and so you have a lot of offshore infrastructure where companies are operating things below the ca but you have one issue which is that a lot of these commercial satellite providers right they’re operating they companies right they’re trying to sell data from their satellites and so if they are flying over areas of the sea that they think are effectively empty and that no one would uh you know would there wouldn’t be much of a a commercial case for people to buy that imagery they may not spend money on on downlinking and or saving the data uh to put out for commercial um you know commercial purchase uh because they think there’s not there’s not going to be buyers that may be the case for a lot of the world’s oceans however in places like the Baltic Sea we see that even you know when I’m looking at Satellite data that exists in these these platforms these commercial platforms uh let’s let’s take as an example the the Gulf of Finland the place that I I just was a few weeks ago um you know between Helsinki and talin okay so you have you know every 10 15 minutes different different satellites from different companies going over these two major cities and taking images of various things because they they either are being tasked to do so by uh by companies that want to monitor certain things you know there’s there’s a lot of applications things like you know progress photography for a building site for example but you have these heavily populated areas where there’s obviously going to be a commercial Market to buy these images now you’d say because it’s only about 60 or or uh 80 kilometers between these two cities in the offshore that they would pick up all the data in between in the offshore but that’s not the case there’s a lot less data there even though it’s directly proximate to two major population areas and this is where it becomes difficult when I’m looking at Satellite data in and around the Baltic connector incident because unlike the populated areas on both sides of the Gulf of Finland out in the water where the incident took place there’s just you know data that happens to come up every few days or or maybe once once a week which um would would be really good if if commercial operators would say to satellite providers you know energy companies telecommunication companies uh transportation companies talking to satellite providers and saying guess what that’s not empty ocean that’s a there’s actually a pipeline there and so whereas you know we we don’t necessarily uh you know want you to take data for the entire ocean this little strip really important to take data and we will buy it right and and so for an energy Company to pay something like you know $5,000 a day or whatever the the going rate is for for this level of imagery that’s nothing right Exxon Mobile monitoring an offshore platform that would be nothing right so uh again there’s a lot of different areas and again this is why it’s so multidisiplinary uh to bring all of these uh these these various sectors together um because we’re in a new you know commercial space Renaissance but we’re also in a new uh era of more and more infrastructure going up and that’s going to be the case of course when we get to talk about um offshore uh renewable energy as well but what you describe is increasing the level of control over what is going what is happening around and that is understandable our infrastructure was created in Europe in particular with the idea that we live in Eternal peace and nobody thought about a large scale war in Europe or about like a large Nation uh which would love to disrupt the whole economy of of the European continent maybe some small terrorist attacks maybe some criminals but not on that large scale dozens of millions of dollars invested just into work of these sabotage groups um but is it only about increasing control over our very sophisticated and vulnerable infrastructure or also about creating the new way of delivering uh goods and commodities um in such way which is not so easy to hack to distort it and to damage well you know it’s it’s hard to uh imagine different types of infrastructure uh for for you know sending electricity uh you know electricity subc cables or onshore cables that’s that’s the way we’ve done it and that’s the way we will continue to do it um and and I think that you know when we look at uh Renewables that’s kind of the uh you know the horizontal challenge of how do we protect Renewables um you know the the gut feel is to say that this is much safer than old pipelines hydrocarbon infrastructure structure and things like this and to extent that’s true right if you put build a an offshore Wind Farm Serge and it’s got let’s say a thousand windmills it’s going to be very difficult for a small sabotage group um you know whether it’s a uh a terrorist group non-state actor or it’s a state actor uh and and operating uh you know someone for example like our our friends over in the the Russian um uh Naval Mission directorate subc director at googi for example um you know it’s going to be difficult to take out all of 1,000 of these however there are still choke points in the systems where at the at the end of the day you’re going to have transmission cables you know electricity cables that are going to be sending that electricity to the shore uh and so you’re going to have kind of the same pathology as you do with um electricity interconnectors in the offshore right now or pipelines uh right now and that that’s not an argument not to do these systems in fact we have to um if we want to address the climate crisis and and get through the energy transition what I mean is a lot of the energy transition has not yet considered I think the um you know the concerns about physical security of energy infrastructure there’s there’s look been there’s been a lot of focus over the past 15 to 20 years on cyber security uh and cyber attacks on these sort of infrastructure and indeed we continue to have issues with that we saw even last week uh a a water system in Texas be attacked by a Russian hacking group uh causing you know causing uh some some water uh facilities to over overflow and that’s terrifying when you really think about it right that’s that’s uh critical infrastructure for uh you know for populations that that is a major major concern and and so we certainly don’t want to overlook the Cyber side of things but I think that in this era we thought that you know the idea of physical attacks on these systems especially from from State actors someone like Russia um was Unthinkable because why would you bother doing something like that if you can easily with a few you know swipes of your fingers um uh mount a Cyber attack against energy infrastructure or other critical infrastructure um and so that’s why I think that we really have had a wakeup call between the um you know the the tromo to spard uh spalat uh uh fiberoptic cable system attack in uh in 2022 start of 2022 this the nordstream attacks btic connector attacks all of these sort of things that have been going on have been wakeup calls that we really have to get back to basics and understand um you know uh you know counter sabotage and counter um you know counter physical attack uh uh uh pathologies to to how we actually respond to these because this has unfortunately not gone away in the era uh that we’re in right now in fact I think it’s it’s only become more ubiquitous and becoming more uus and it’s not been uh you know unfortunately thrown away in the Dustbin of history from you know the world World War I and World War II sabotage era so I I think that we really need to um keep this and keep physical security of energy infrastructure at the front of mind uh because we’ll never get through the energy transition and and build the systems we need and have the political will to to get through this if there continue to be uh cyber attacks but in particular if there continue to be physical attacks on energy infrastructure that undermines the electorates uh support for the measures that are needed to build out infrastructure uh that gets us from you know from hydrocarbons to a renewable energy future U because you know they just will see well guess what You Know You’re Building this infrastructure and it can’t be protected so you know let’s just stay with the status quo uh and that’s dangerous as well and I think that there’s too many in the the the area of climate that are are um unfortunately just not focused on the physical and and National Security impacts of um of a lot of what what is being proposed and it’s not that they’re against it I think they just need to integrate this uh you know keep integrating this sort of strategies into the broader climate Playbook uh when I was out on Bourn home uh as a part of my research project investigating uh part of the uh the nordstream blast last year I saw in some Farmers Fields there were painted signs against this uh proposed uh renewable energy Island that is going to be built basically in the offshore near uh near born home uh in Danish Waters uh with the uh justification at least in terms of the protest signs that nordstream was blown up right and so this this jux supposition uh that that you know that a a hydrocarbon pipeline that was leaking all this methane is is reducing uh the will of folks to you know have faith in their authorities have faith in their governments to build the renewable energy infrastructure we need for the enig Venda that’s really concerning as well and we need to make sure that these National Security and foreign policy strategies are front and center in in whatever um you know energy Playbook we we end up with absolutely absolutely and you have already mentioned uh this uh this Quantum Leap from the cyber attacks to a physical attack that we have seen recently during the last months two physical attacks on energy infrastructure which were Unthinkable recently or until recently the first one was the destruction of navaka uh Dam in Ukraine by the Russian military which released the largest the largest water reservoir which we have in Europe and we have seen also hijacking of a nuclear power plant by a state power the event which many believed uh could only happen in a bad Hollywood movie about terrorists has happened in reality and not with a terrorist but with a whole terrorist state by chance a permanent member of the United Nations security Council do we now have we now been able to rethink our approach to security of um our infrastructure in the site of what is going on in Ukraine yeah I I think that’s really important Sergey to to look at I I I’ve been really uh interested in understanding more the strategies and the sort of mitigation measures that um you know Ukrainian authorities have come up with and they’ve come up come up with quite valiantly there’s there’s unfortunately only so much you can do to protect physical uh you know infrastructure in particular fixed infrastructure that are you know large footprint um older designs from kinetic strikes uh without sufficient air um you know air defense uh systems and and that’s why I’ve been asked a lot about you know how do we how do we protect you know what what is the you know I kind of asked what’s the energy security strategy for Ukraine ever since the large scale Invasion happened and and I would say right away air defense right and people are asking me that thinking I’m going to come up with some um energy for energy policy right you have an energy issue you’re going to have an energy policy solution but the truth of the matter is the cheapest way that we can support uh you know the uh the resiliency of of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is giving them more air defense systems giving them more patriots giving them more High Mars you know supporting um the transfer of of of x f-16s to uh you know to protect energy infrastructure because you know it’s one thing when you had uh at you know as Russia was ramping up its strikes against uh Ukraine in uh in 2022 you have attacks on smaller infrastructure power lines and uh and substations through the electrical grid and things like this all civilian infrastructure I might add this is this is all you know aimed at uh exacerbating a a tragic humanitarian crisis with I believe the Hope on the Kremlin side that um that the Ukrainian people would just get fed up with the energy intermittency or or energy poverty that’s being created and as a result uh reduce their support for uh you know pushing back on Kremlin aggression and and and continuing the War uh to to defend their nation and of course you know this this has failed the Ukrainian people are are standing Resolute as they uh as they are and have been heroically doing since the start of this large scale conflict um but that has changed because those sort of systems are are in some ways modular a lot of those can be you know we’ve seen uh you know energy operators in Ukraine uh right after strikes going out and and fixing these as quickly as possible and doing a heroic job to restore power for uh for for the general population you know civilian population of Ukraine but now we’re seeing in the past weeks uh strikes on on thermal power plants and larger power plants things that uh can’t be rebuilt or or swapped out or or found on the global market quickly uh and brought to Ukraine to to plug in and so the lack of modularity of those systems that are being destroyed now that that’s really concerning because it’s going to create energy poverty for a long time and so for anyone that says uh you know well we have to focus at some point on how do we rebuild these systems defend them now give the systems to Ukraine now that they need to defend their Skies so that these don’t get struck as uh as much or hopefully at all uh if you give the right right type of systems in the right quantities right this this notion that we’re going to be rebuilding and having these rebuilding Summits for Ukrainian energy that’s all you know well and good but we have a military solution right now that we can send more air defense put around these facilities and you’re going to save billions and billions of dollars not only of uh you know the the military cost but the the ultimate cost that we have is the West to um to help Ukraine uh uh you know stabilize itself in the future so so this notion that you know energy officials often look for Energy Solutions and that’s that’s only natural but again these are multidisiplinary issues that they you need to go cross discipline to figure out the best way the best economic way of getting around these um you know these these issues for an energy security solution which is not just you know as I said the Bloomberg terminal approach or or the you know the economics forward approach it’s it’s a a hard security question that has a hard security answer and Ukraine has answered a lot of this and we have a lot of lessons I’m sure that will come out I know a lot of this is very sensitive right now and the ukrainians don’t very you know very rightfully so don’t want to release this information publicly to to say what they’re doing to protect their infrastructure but I think in the future um as things uh you know as as Ukraine hopefully to push back Russian aggression more of these uh these these strategies will um help Western governments uh better protect their infrastructure um from what is the the harshest possible physical infrastructure attack uh set which is of course uh kinetic strikes from from military um military systems we indeed we are witnessing a terrible Russia’s war of genocide when Russia tries to destroy the very basics of energy Supply in Ukraine causing suffering for millions of people uh but this is what we still can for a certain extent compensate with deliveries from the west but is any European Western Country ready to face a similar attack what will happen when our power plants will be attacked with the similar intensity we don’t have enough spare ports to rebuild our German infrastructure well look I think that that’s again where we have to take lessons from Ukraine I think the the biggest lesson is more air defense systems around critical infrastructure um is certainly part of the solution we you can’t infinitely build uh spare parts and uh in spare effectively spare full power plants um for your entire Grid it’s just not an economic uh solution uh you can give you know some level of resiliency with mobile power plants and things like this to to patch uh you know patch things up in a uh in a a military conflict but you really really need to make sure that the defense systems are your Frontline Defenders against uh you know energy infrastructure attacks um and so you say you know you’re talking about this uh this hypothetical future in which I assume we’re we’re talking about a large scale conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation and what we we would do to protect infrastructure in that case you know look I I’m much more concerned right now again with all of the infrastructure that is being um you know being damaged and and has really only been damaged in this this scale and this scope since the start of Russia’s large scale invasion of Ukraine and I think there’s no um you know no coincidence in a lot of these cases um that that has been going on and uh you know look you yourself I saw in a a classic appearance on France 24 uh talking about the the nordstream blast where uh the um the moderator on the the program basically uh with you know just just basically said that you know it’s it’s certainly true that the ukrainians were behind this in this small Pro Ukrainian sailboat uh going out and and uh blowing up nor you know three of the four trunk lines of nordstream one and two um it’s it’s interesting that that a lot of the media has intentionally or unintentionally whatever it may be but ignored the fact that there were many many uh you know in both June of 2022 and in the days just two days before the large the the the attacks on nordstream there were Uh Russian um you know intelligence vessels that have suby Warfare capabilities uh that were above the exact blast sites uh that that they turned out to you know have have uh taken place at so unless this is kind of like Minority Report where uh you remember the old the the film with Tom Cruz where they could predict where and when future crimes would take place I don’t think that it’s really reasonable to say that the Russians as I’ve heard some in Berlin say that out there to quote unquote protect the pipeline they they knew exactly where the strike was going to take place no I mean you have to look at the capabilities is it literally impossible that a sailboat could couldn’t be used as a platform for this uh you know no I can’t completely rule that out but you have to to uh you know uh balance that with the capabilities that the Russians actually had on site and were shown Again by a pan Nordic investigation um to have V on site which are satellite images of Russian uh you know military uh subsea Warfare vessels and so that’s very interesting the other thing I saw Ser when I was in Berlin um you know quite a few people uh whether it was talking to them in NE pal or in Berlin Etc you know they would in in instinctively say that they they dismiss both the uh Ukrainian and the um the Russian quote unquote theories of who who may have been behind it and and immediately said uh when I said well who do you think uh you know blew up nordstream 2 and they said well of course your country meaning the United States and um in some cases uh you know this this really you know has been debunked many many times over um it’s not in the interest of the United States to order a you know clandestine kinetic strike against this infrastructure one that uh Germany was uh relying on and this is the Biden Administration who didn’t even want to sanction nordstream two you know in the months before this so no way that that happened but you know you have Russia operationalizing dis information in and around these sort of infrastructure attacks the same thing goes for Balta connector where you know there is a a Chinese flagged vessel the new new polar bear that was shown to have dragged its anchor through these cables and the Baltic connector pipeline yes for uh you know it was it was Chinese flag it’s Hong Kong flag however um this was only Chinese flag for about six weeks before the incident took place and what’s more The Vessel had stopped in clinr there were reports that there may have been a crew swap to a Russian crew and then this whole thing this this this vessel was escorted by uh the sorp put which is a Russian nuclear powered Arctic class ice breaker um through this entire location and you know I’ve talked to uh ship captains and subsea experts and things like this and and you know the idea that this was a complete accident where you would drop an anchor to the seabed and then continue at full speed at between 9 and 12 knots uh for 250 nautical miles come on I mean this is this is really difficult to to understand and whereas again you it’s very hard to conclude who is behind it and you know this report that I’ll have coming out soon is going to talk take a lot of these aspects into account um you know it’s something that you know Federal governments should be looking into further um in understanding that this is part of our critical infrastructure protection package but also you know attribution is key to deterring uh these sort of incidents in the future and the fact that none of these incidents that I’ve mentioned on this uh this podcast have been attributed At All by any National Authority is concerning right and and either it uh it shows a recognition that um you know attribution may cause escalation if it turns out to be one actor or another or if it means that um there’s no ability to attribute because of the lack of evidence um both of those outcomes mean we need to do more we need to do our homework and and make sure that um that that that state actors and non-state actors cannot weaponize our own infrastructure against us so I I I don’t know if you have any I’d love to hear some of your comments on this as well say I I I did uh you know reference your um your your epic interview with France 24 but any thoughts on that if I turn reverse roles for just a moment here oh thank you yeah it was for me it was a shock when I was sitting in front of of the camarine live stream it was just several hours after the destruction of Noak kadam and the H said oh we don’t know if it were Russians the Russians didn’t have any interest to destroy nadam what they were bragging all the time that they will do it and then said yeah but northstream 2 it were not no Russians at all say what what are you talking about yeah it were Ukrainian it is everyone knows to be Ukrainian oh my gosh uh it is absolutely it is really sometimes hard to imagine how many of these pro-russian narratives are being spread also in our media and being presented as if they were more balanced nuanced or clever approach without any political bias because yeah we cannot all the time blame the Russians they cannot be that bad they cannot be that hostile we need to think about other options what about ukrainians what about the Americans maybe they are the bad guys who knows yes but um what uh I I really liked in your in your uh comment is that uh the inaction of our government governments sometimes can or often can provoke more hostile actions against our infrastructure do you see any positive changes here during the last couple of years with all the Russia’s war in Ukraine or against Ukraine and with all the uh arrested spies we have in Germany like now every week we have spies who have been arrested uh with accusations of being spies for China or for Russia is it a wake up call finally I mean I think that’s absolutely a wake up call in the fact that one of the most recent set of arrests was was two German individuals that apparently were uh operating at the behest of either the FSB or the gru to attack infrastructure in and around the supply chains for um you know us support of of Ukraine basically looking at uh infrastructure around uh around us U military bases in Germany you know that’s really concerning and that again you know is another open question of if if the Russians have demonstrated at least a willingness to train um you know intelligence operatives to take out these sort of attacks on German soil uh you know we’ve seen a number of these sort of infrastructure attacks against civil infrastructure against German civil infrastructure um you know already and so um is it possible that these are in some way connected I don’t know but again I hope that Federal authorities are are looking into this further and I think I think the other thing Serge is that it shows that we need a uh and again just harping on this a multidisiplinary way of investigating and and conveying to the public the the narratives uh and and understandings of these in a more Technical and rigorous way as well you mentioned the Nova Hova Dan right and so we saw a lot of this he said she said well the ukrainians did it or the the Russians did it or or you know we don’t know but we can you know balance balance it to one of the two well in this case uh you know the New York Times came out with a technical explainer by industrial Engineers not uh you know not reporters and not um uh uh you know political commentators and things like this where they were able to show technically that uh you know effectively that that in a rigorous uh article um that the only way that the the dam the dam could have been damaged in that way was that if it had been blown up from the inside in you know various locations in the dam and the bottom line is you know everyone knew that the Russians were the only ones to have control of the interior of the dam and so it effectively concluded that it’s impossible for this narrative to continue that the ukrainians blew up their own Dam by striking it from the outside because it wasn’t possible uh given the capabilities that they have and so again I call on uh you know investigative journalists and and the media in general to also make sure to as you’re doing these investigations right and and as you’re looking at critical infrastructure rure attacks and and as you’re reporting on this get in touch with engineers get in touch with technologists get in touch with Scientists to to build out your understanding of what is literally possible from a physical standpoint and it may not always be the case that you can you know rule it out fully but um it’s certainly something to uh to look at indeed and that is a massive question do we have enough knowledge and do we have enough understanding of the severity of the situation of the severity of the challenge we are facing with our infrastructure not only energy infrastructure also transport communication and other basics of our civilization being weaponized by hostile power do we have enough knowledge and will to protect our way of life it was an interview with Benjamin Schmidt who is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania he is also a senior fell at the center for European policy analysis sea and he served as a European energy security advisor at the US Department of State thank you Benjamin for this very insightful and partly scary interview thank you so much s it’s great to be here and thanks for all you’re doing to support Ukraine and and support transatlantic security r large it’s it does not go unnoticed and uh really appreciate everything that you and your colleagues are doing thank you so much for your kind words and don’t forget to like to share to subscribe to this channel and wait for the next interviews

Both Russua and China have been weaponizing energy and telecommunication infrastructure across Europe. While China is actively buying control in Europe-based critical infrastructure, Russia is directly sabotaging energy, telecommunication, & transport infrastructure. Recent damaging of Baltic Sea cable connectors and increased GPS jamming endanger broader regional stability.

Sergej Sumlenny, host of the @EuroResilience video podcast, discusses the key aspects of infrastructure protection with Dr. Benjamin Schmitt, a senior fellow at UPenn & CEPA and former European energy security advisor at the U.S. Department of State. This interview covers:

🏗️ How Ukraine protects its infrastructure from Russia’s strikes
♻️ Why green transition is not a golden solution
🛡️ How to protect European infrastructure from physical attacks?
👤 Proving the responsibility of Russia & China in for infrastructure attacks

The @EuroResilience is a video podcast of the European Resilience Initiative Center. Learn more about ERIC: https://european-resilience.org or https://twitter.com/EuroResilience

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Thumbnail background picture credits: The State Emergency Service of Ukraine

0:00 Repelling attacks on energy infrastructure
8:22 How to protect European infrastructure from attacks?
17:06 Protecting critical physical infrastructures from threats
24:05 Lessons from the war in Ukraine for Europe
29:43 Is the EU capable of protecting its infrastructure?
37:36 How to repel Russian attacks?