NATO testing underwater drones off the cost of Europe to deter Russia

NATO is developing new underwater drone technology that can use artificial intelligence to better detect and deter attacks on critical underwater infrastructure.

The exercises, dubbed Dynamic Messenger 23 and Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS 23), will bring together over 2,000 civilian amid military personnel with a focus on integrating maritime unmanned systems into the alliance's operations and test new technologies that are currently under development.

The exercises come almost exactly a year after the intentional bombings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which highlighted NATO's difficulty in deterring attacks and monitoring suspicious activity around critical underwater infrastructure. While many members of the alliance have suspected Russian involvement in the attack, NATO has yet to formally assign responsibility to any nation or organization.