Russia uses fishing trawlers and investigation vessels in the North Sea in intelligence activities. They have installed an underwater surveillance device on board to map key military facilities and critical infrastructure, seen as possible targets for sabotage. This follows, among others, from a joint investigation conducted by Nordic media: DR from Denmark, NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and Yle in Finland. Within its framework, dozens of Russian investigation and fishing vessels were tracked, whose routes regularly ran through oil and gas fields, close wind farms and power plants, as well as close military camps, including during NATO exercises. According to the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, in the last 10 years at least 50 Russian civilian vessels have taken part in intelligence missions in the Nordic waters. The Norwegian intelligence chief Nils Andreas Stensønes, as quoted by the NRK, said that intelligence activities were carried out "except for average commercial activities (fishing boats - ed)".
