Power failure on strategically important island of Gotland near Russia

Strategically important for NATO

Blackout on Gotland: Test for an attack by Russia?

At the weekend there was a power failure on the island of Gotland. Experts are alarmed.

For about two hours, the electricity on the Swedish island of Gotland was completely gone on Saturday. As the head of the local electricity operator of Gotland, Kalle Blomberg, explains, the cause of the power failure is not completely clear. At the moment, however, one assumes an error in the power plant and do not count on an attack that comes from outside.

Gotland is about 90 kilometers from the Swedish mainland and about 250 kilometers from the Russian exclave Kaliningrad. Because of this proximity, military experts assume that the island could be one of the first destinations in Russia if Moscow attacks NATO. Due to its location, the island is a strategically important point for control of the Baltic Sea.

The situation also makes the island valuable for the western military alliance. Hundreds of soldiers are on Gotland to control the region, in the event of a Russian attack, they can be quickly increased to 4,500.

In accordance with this importance of the island, the Swedish government reacted to the power failure: As the “Wirtschafts Week” (WiWo) writes, a spokesman for the civil protection authority said at the weekend: “We are observing the situation very carefully.” The electricity operator originally assumed an error on a power cable between Sweden and the island.

The security expert and reserve officer Oliver Rolofs explains the “Wiwo”: “The suspicion that Gotland was also victims of a ‘random anchor damage’ was obvious.” He adds: “If you want, you can also sabotage secure substation stations without much effort.”

Last year, deep sea cables were repeated, presumably by boats from the Russian shadow fleet.