Greenland and Faroe Islands plan new communication cables amid fears of Russian sabotage

Authorities in territories across the North Atlantic have warned that the threat of hybrid warfare, including potential sabotage of undersea communication cables by Russia and others, is moving from the Baltic Sea to the far north. The Financial Times reports that Greenland plans to lay a new data cable to Denmark, with the Faroe Islands also negotiating to have the cable routed through its territory.

Greenland’s representative in the Danish parliament, Aaja Chemnitz, said the island is currently connected to the internet by two cables: one from Canada and one from Iceland. “The vulnerability that you see in the western world, you can times it by 1,000 here. If you cut one of our cables, we won’t have internet for six to nine months,” Chemnitz said, adding that satellite communications cover only about 1% of the island’s internet needs. She also noted that Greenland lacks the resources to monitor for acts of sabotage.

In October, Danish authorities announced they would spend $8.7 billion on F-35 fighter jets and Arctic security measures, including a new cable to Greenland. The Faroe Islands, another autonomous territory within Denmark, is also in talks to build a new cable line through the archipelago to strengthen defenses against potential attacks.

“When you are an island in the middle of the north Atlantic, you are vulnerable,” said Faroe Islands Prime Minister Aksel V. Johannesen. “We have two telecommunications cables today, and if both are attacked at the same time we do not have any connection with the world.”

The remoteness and low population density of Arctic islands leave them particularly exposed to the sorts of hybrid threats that have appeared across Europe in recent months — from damage to telecom and power cables in the Baltic Sea to airspace incursions by unidentified drones. European authorities suspect Russia is behind at least some of these incidents.

Several cables in or near the Arctic have already been damaged, with no culprits yet identified. A cable linking the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands to Scotland was damaged once in 2022 and twice in 2025. In 2022, a telecommunications cable connecting mainland Norway to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard was also damaged. Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported that a Russian fishing vessel had passed over the cable more than 140 times, though prosecutors eventually shelved the case.