German Navy deputy chief warns that Baltic could become a 'closed sea'

摘要

Security challenges in the Baltic region are raising the risk of the Baltic Sea becoming closed off to NATO and the alliance must increase regional co-operation to prevent this from happening, the German Navy's deputy chief has warned. Speaking at the Maritime/ Air Systems and Technologies (MAST) conference in Copenhagen on 4 September, Vice Admiral Rainer Brinkmann said that in the Baltic region "there is one main challenge and this challenge is Russia". Western partners "must take appropriate measures to cope with the [challenge]", he added. "We have to prevent the Baltic Sea from being a 'mare clausum' [closed sea]."