Shadow Fleet Movements in Northern Europe to be Tracked by AI System
In response to the heightened concerns over the movement of the shadow fleet of tankers after the damage to Finland’s cables, the UK in partnership with the nations of Northern Europe reports it is deploying a newly developed AI system to track threats to undersea infrastructure. The system which was first previewed in the summer of 2024 provides a real-time capability to monitor the shadow fleet in the Russian oil trade and other suspect vessels.
The operation was activated last week and named Nordic Warden. It is led by the UK as part of the Joint Expeditionary Force, an initiative launched a decade ago. The UK’s goal was to strengthen defenses and coordination between the members of the JEF, which is independent of NATO or other organizations. Today, it consists of 10 nations; Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland.
“Nordic Warden was activated last week under JEF protocols, which provide a series of options to the alliance that can be activated in order to protect against potential threats. The initiative highlights how the JEF is using innovative technologies to boost collective European security while supporting and complementing NATO’s own operations,” said UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Harnessing the power of AI, the UK-led system is a major innovation that creates the ability to monitor large areas of the sea with a comparatively small number of resources. AI is used to assess data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System (AIS) ships use to broadcast their position and to calculate the risk posed by each vessel entering areas of interest. If a potential risk is assessed, the system will monitor the suspicious vessel in real-time and immediately send out a warning, which will be shared with JEF participant nations as well as NATO Allies.
“Nordic Warden will help protect against both deliberate acts of sabotage as well as cases of extreme negligence which we have seen cause damage to underwater cables,” said UK Defence Secretary John Healey.
The UK reports that specific vessels identified as part of the shadow fleet have been registered into the system so that they can be closely monitored when approaching key areas of interest. The system is targeted at 22 areas, including parts of the English Channel, North Sea, Kattegat, and Baltic.
Nordic Warden was first trialed during the summer of 2024 the UK Ministry of Defense reports. It was deployed again during the JEF’s Exercise Joint Protector, an exercise that involved more than 300 UK personnel deployed to Latvia to demonstrate the ability and the capability to deploy abroad at short notice.