How a Tiny Archipelago Gave Russia a Foothold in the Atlantic

While Europe has worked hard to close security gaps since Russia invaded Ukraine, a tiny island group in the North Atlantic provides a loophole for Russian ships to fish and dock in its waters and ports, among them vessels accused of spying and sabotage.

Western nations are growing increasingly wary of what’s going on in and around the Faroe Islands, a self-governing territory under the Kingdom of Denmark which has a longstanding fishing agreement with Moscow. The agreement lets Russian vessels call at Faroese ports, circumventing a ban from European Union ports.

It also gives Russian vessels fishing rights in waters shared between the Faroes and the U.K, prompting the British government to push the Faroese to suspend it—something the islands’ leaders haven’t yet agreed to do.

The dispute illustrates how Europe has sharpened its focus on waterways in the North Sea and the North Atlantic, as it enters a new era of great-power conflict with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

The Faroese-U.K. special area falls within a strategic transit route between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K., known as the GIUK Gap, which since the Cold War has been a key access point for military operations in the North Atlantic. As countries have become more dependent on offshore energy facilities and undersea fiber cables that enable internet access and financial transactions, the gap’s importance has grown.

“Seabed critical infrastructure and energy infrastructure have been targeted and will be targeted in the future. It is an awareness that the U.S. and Europe have been waking up to in the last year,” said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

Following criticism from the British, the Faroe Islands last week implemented new restrictions meaning that only 31 Russian vessels named in their bilateral agreement can access its ports. Previously, other Russian fishing vessels not named in the agreement could legally transship cargo or undergo repairs in Faroese harbors. Faroese Foreign Minister Høgni Hoydal said in an interview that the new step will decrease the number of Russian vessels by about 60%.

However, the named Russian ships will still be able to fish in the so-called special zone that the Faroes share with the U.K., where British authorities aren’t allowed to inspect them, according to a 1999 agreement with Denmark.

Mark Spencer, the British minister for food, farming and fisheries, told his Faroese counterpart Dennis Holm in January that “the decision to renew your deal with Russia impacts upon our bilateral relationship,” and expressed “grave concern that this situation may arise again during 2023,” according to a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal through a freedom of information request.

A U.K. government spokesperson said London will continue to seek a ban on Russian vessels fishing in the U.K.-Faroes special area.

The wind-lashed Faroes, with a population of 54,000 people, 70,000 sheep and around a half-a-million breeding pairs of puffins, have jurisdiction over their own trade policy and aren’t a member of the EU, but their foreign and security policy is determined in Denmark. The Faroese-Russian fishing agreement, which dates back to 1977, allows the Faroese to fish primarily for cod in the Barents Sea and Russians to fish for herring and mackerel in Faroese waters. Fish constitutes about 90% of Faroese exports. Danish politicians have said the agreement makes the Faroes, and by extension Denmark, vulnerable to Russian espionage and creates a rift with the EU.

The sabotage last year of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea showed the vulnerability of underwater infrastructure and the difficulty in identifying culprits. For instance, 77% of the U.K.’s gas is imported from Norway through pipelines under the North Sea.

“Russia has invested a lot into being able to threaten these areas and carry out clandestine undersea activities,” said Nick Childs, senior fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “It is very much back in vogue again.”

Recent incidents have stoked anxiety in European capitals about the Russian presence in the Faroes.

Last year, after 2.6 miles of an undersea fiber-optic cable connecting a Norwegian satellite station with the mainland was cut and vanished without a trace, marine tracking data showed a Russian fishing trawler had crisscrossed over the cable more than 140 times in the days before it was severed, prompting suspicions of sabotage. The trawler’s movements were first reported by Norwegian media outlets.

Following the incident, the trawler, Melkart-5, docked in the Faroes until May this year. Andrey Roman, deputy director of Murman SeaFood, which owns Melkart-5, denied allegations that the vessel had been involved in sabotage.

“Our company is a completely commercial company,” Roman said. “Our vessels are subject to control in Norwegian ports and on the high seas by the Norwegian authorities.”

In November last year, Norwegian police in the northern port of Kirkenes searched two Russian fishing trawlers, Lira and Ester, which had arrived there straight from the Faroes, and found Soviet-era military radio equipment behind locked doors. The chief of Norwegian intelligence in the region told national media at the time that he suspected the vessels could be involved in espionage.

The two vessels currently have their transponders turned off, but have docked in the Faroes more than 200 times since 2015, according to marine trafficking data. They are both among the 31 vessels allowed to call at Faroese ports, according to a list provided by the Faroe Islands Fisheries Inspection.

A spokesperson for the Norwegian Police Security Service declined to comment on the allegations against the three Russian vessels, but said Norway was a target for Russian intelligence services, and that “it is obviously possible that ships, including civilian ones, can be used by Russian authorities as platforms to collect information as part of their activities.”

Hoydal, the Faroese foreign minister, said Faroese authorities had not detected any malign activity from Russian vessels in their waters. He also pointed out that the islands’ trade with Russia doesn’t violate EU sanctions against Moscow, which exclude food items—although no EU nations currently trade fish with Russia.

“Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, we have introduced the same sanctions as the EU,” Hoydal said. “But we honor our agreements.”

A Faroese lawmaker in Copenhagen, Sjurdur Skaale, said the EU should remove tariffs on Faroese exports of processed seafood products to help the islands reduce their trade with Russia and suspend the agreement.

The Faroese earned privileged access to the Russian market in 2014, following the invasion of Crimea, when the islands chose not to follow EU sanctions on Russia. However, Iceland—another small territory depending on the seafood business—followed the EU’s lead and was targeted by Russian counter sanctions. The following year, Iceland’s economy contracted by about 1%.

“The stakes are high for smaller countries and territories,” Pincus said.

Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at [email protected]