Last week the major pipeline bringing gas from Russia into the EU was sabotaged with explosions recorded at at least four different points along the line deep under the Baltic Sea.
Flows of gas seeped into the sea, posing a serious threat to vessels in the area, damaging delicate eco-systems and further ratcheting the tension between Russia and all its neighbours to the west.
The perpetrators are unknown, or at least there is no hard evidence to say who did it.
The Russians – in a by now typically bellicose statement - said it was an act of terrorism by the West. Politicians and analysts in the west made it very clear it was, in fact, the Russians who had blown up what was once regarded as an absolutely critical piece of energy infrastructure in Europe.
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While responsibility is shrouded in ambiguity, it is the latest example of hybrid war.
It means the likelihood that European markets will return to anything remotely normal have receded even further and paints a bleak picture of just some of the vulnerabilities that exist in our world.
Ireland is particularly vulnerable to such infrastructural attacks with many of the digital arteries that run across the Atlantic, connecting Europe and the US, particularly exposed as they approach our shore.
Naomi O’Leary is the Irish Times Europe Correspondent and she talks to In The News about the sabotage and what might be coming down the tracks.
