Admiral, in terms of security policy, the Baltic Sea has been the scene of numerous tensions lately. How would you assess the current situation in the maritime environment?
The situation today is tense. Since the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, the protection of critical undersea infrastructure has gained a new urgency. In the past, we have seen incidents with damaged pipelines and severed communication and power cables, such as C-Lion and Estlink. Each case may appear isolated, but the overall picture shows a pattern. Russia is testing our vigilance and closely watching whether and how decisively we respond.
In January 2025, NATO launched the surveillance mission Baltic Sentry. How exactly does CTF Baltic contribute and to what extent are you involved in protecting infrastructure in the Baltic Sea?
In essence, it is a NATO reconnaissance and surveillance mission aimed at preventing acts of sabotage against critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. The objective is to strengthen NATO’s presence in selected maritime areas, to improve information sharing between the coastal states, and to generate a comprehensive situation picture above and below the water.
As CTF Baltic, I command the naval forces assigned to me and control their daily operations. That is to say, we ensure continuous monitoring of the maritime areas in the Baltic Sea that are important to us. It also means detecting abnormal behaviour of merchant ships and sharing this information with our partners. We work closely together with NATO’s Maritime Command (MARCOM) and the Maritime Operation Centres of the Baltic NATO navies. All of this results in a comprehensive maritime situation picture of the Baltic Sea, with our operations centre serving as the central hub for communication, coordination and data exchange.
You mentioned cooperation with the other Baltic coastal states. What does this look like in terms of day-to-day cooperation?
Close cooperation and the daily exchange with our Allies is the greatest strength of CTF Baltic. In our headquarters, women and men from 13 NATO member states work side by side. This multinational composition brings together enormous expertise and sets up direct communication channels with all participating countries. This allows us to quickly combine and make targeted use of information, data and resources. Whether it is reconnaissance data about Russian units, satellite images, civilian ship movements or aerial observation – we collect, analyse and assess everything and share it with the Baltic navies and with NATO.
In this respect, we see ourselves as the connecting element between the national navies, the naval units at sea, and NATO. This close cooperation ensures that we have a very accurate and up-to-date situation picture at all times so that, if necessary, we can take fast and coordinated action in cases of suspected sabotage against Baltic Sea infrastructure, for example.
Admiral, the Commander Task Force Baltic HQ officially entered service just over one year ago. What is your assessment of this first year?
I am very satisfied and also proud of my women and men. What we have put together here as a team in just twelve months is truly impressive. Our goal was ambitious: to become operational within a year. And that is exactly what we achieved. NATO confirmed our full operational capability at the end of September. For more than 280 days, we have been continuously coordinating the NATO reconnaissance and surveillance mission Baltic Sentry. Within the scope of Baltic Sentry, we are also commanding units assigned to us by MARCOM and the respective nations. In total, this included 80 different warships from 15 nations. These are impressive numbers.
Since entering service, we have taken part in more than ten exercises, and we will participate in five more before year’s end. A special milestone in spring of this year was the US-led large-scale exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS), in which I was assigned a multinational task force of approximately 35 ships. The Northern Coasts exercise in September was on a similar scale. Both of these challenging exercises show what our headquarters can do. Today, CTF Baltic is a steadfast and reliable partner for NATO and our Allies in the Baltic Sea.
And finally: When you look to the future, where do you see CTF Baltic one year from now?
I have the ambition to become even better and faster in all areas. We also follow the guiding principle “ready for the fight tonight”. Specifically, this means establishing a standing maritime operational framework for the Baltic Sea so that we can further improve the coordination of our activities and the pooling of our forces. We need to exercise the tasks that are needed in the event of a crisis or war. “Train as you fight” is not an empty phrase, it is a basic requirement for success. And I want us to use even more sources for our situation picture, and to further improve our accuracy with the help of artificial intelligence. CTF Baltic will have further consolidated and be responsible for all maritime activities in the Baltic Sea region on behalf of NATO. The Baltic Sea is our lifeline, and therefore we must be able to respond appropriately and quickly to any potential threat.
