At the start of the week, Finland announced plans to set up a maritime surveillance center which will also see cooperation from Estonia, as well as Latvia and Lithuania and all allied nations with a Baltic Sea coast: Denmark, Germany, Poland and Sweden.

The maritime surveillance hub would aim to protect the critical undersea infrastructure following a string of incidents which have seen submarine pipelines and cabling damaged by vessels, mostly from the so-called shadow fleet.

"The idea is that we are not creating anything new, but attaching this function to an already existing center," the head of the Estonian Navy's Maritime Operations Center, Brig. Gen. Ardo Riibon told ERR.

While most countries with a navy have such a center within their organizations, "the issue is that not all countries' navies deal with monitoring civilian merchant vessels or tankers. They deal with warships, both those of adversaries and of allies," adding that monitoring shadow fleet and other civilian shipping and activity is normally under the remit of civilian authorities, such as the coastguard.

Estonia, Finland and all the other Baltic nations will not only share intel and information but jointly analyze shadow fleet activities and map common risk and provide "round-the-clock information exchange related to the shadow fleet," Riibon went on.

The navy has also appointed a risk analyst to represent Estonia for this reason, Riibon said, adding various international exercises are also planned in connection with the initiative.

A decision on the initiative was made last May at a meeting of Baltic Sea states' foreign ministers, Riibon noted, adding the memorandum of understanding was signed at that time too. The project "also aligns with the European Commission's Maritime Security Strategy," Riibon said.

Finland effectively took on the lead role in November, with the other participating states tasked with agreeing domestically on the details of what their own maritime center would look like and how it would function.

So far as Estonia goes, the navy will not be needing any additional resources or new personnel as a result of the hub being set up since "we carry out surveillance of our maritime area on a daily basis anyway."

"What is important is that we gain the opportunity to share the information we collect with other centers and to receive early warning from them about vessels of interest even before they reach our maritime area," Riibon added.

"The navy already conducts its surveillance and patrol activities at a level that corresponds to our capabilities," he noted.

A common platform for information exchange is also in the works, Riibon said, though this will be a more complex task whose "implementation will take time and consensus among all the Baltic Sea countries. That consensus does not yet exist."

Riibon's personal view is that the information exchange will more likely rely on emails and phone calls as a way of kicking off better situational awareness, he said.

While Riibon could not say how exactly Finland will be cooperating with the NATO operation Baltic Sentry already operating in the Baltic Sea, he noted that Estonia exchanges information on a daily basis with units taking part in Baltic Sentry, as part of that operation.

NATO launched the Baltic Sentry mission last January.

Finland's border guard said the new facility will boost capabilities in intervening in "situations occurring in the territorial sea and exclusive economic zone," the border guard said.

The center's area of surveillance will include the Gulf of Finland, which separates Estonia from its northern neighbor and is used by Russian "shadow fleet" vessels.

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