▶ 0:25:01Chair Risch: We are waiting for one more to get critical mass so that we can vote on the business meeting for five nominees. It will take us just a moment to do that and then we proceed to the meeting. Thanks for your patience.
▶ 0:26:58Chair Risch: Committee will come to order. We have two matters, one is a business meeting where we will consider six nominees. After that, we will go to a hearing which we will talk about when we get there. Senator shaheen, how do you want to do this, one at a time?
▶ 0:27:17Sen. Shaheen: I'm afraid that we do. Since we don't have everyone here and people are all over the map on some of these nominees, I think it is better to do it.
▶ 0:27:29Chair Risch: We will do it as requested. We will do it as quickly as we can. Mr. john breslow, of arizona, to be ambassador to cyprus. Moved and seconded. We sent to the floor with recommendation to be confirmed. Is there debate? There being no debate, the clerk will call the roll. [roll call]
▶ 0:28:36Chair Risch: Motion is passed. We will now consider Mr. fleet white, of virginia to be an , assistant secretary of state. Political military affairs. Moved and seconded. We send Mr. white to the floor with recommendation that he be confirmed. Is there debate? There being none, the clerk will call the roll. [roll call]
▶ 0:29:35Chair Risch: Motion is passed. We will now consider Mr. todd steggerda, of virginia, to be representative of the united states to the office of the united nations and other international organizations in geneva, with the rank of ambassador. Is there a motion? Moved and seconded that he be sent to the floor with recommendations. Debate? There being none, clerk will call the roll. [roll call]
▶ 0:30:34Chair Risch: The motion is passed. Mr. steggerda will be referred to the law with recommendation that he be confirmed. We have Mr. wells griffith of virginia to be ambassador rank to the united nations at the vienna office. Is there a motion? I'm sorry. And to be representative of the united states of america to the international atomic energy agency, with the rank of ambassador.
▶ 0:31:07Chair Risch: Is there a motion for those? Is there a second? Moved and seconded that we send them to the floor with recommendations. Is there debate?
▶ 0:31:18Sen. Shaheen: Mr. chairman, I'm going to support Mr. griffith today, but I'm doing that because I think this is a really critical position for the united states and global security. I think the iaea is critical to the success or failure of any agreement that is reached on iran's nuclear activities. But if he is confirmed, I intend to watch is tenure closely and expect them to keep an open line with this committee represent his work with united states.
▶ 0:31:46Chair Risch: Thank you, senator. I agree. We need to be kept in touch on this. I visited the iaea in vienna. I came away with a distinct feeling that we need to look at that closely. I am with you on that, we need to keep a handle on this. Having said that, I think Mr.
▶ 0:32:16Chair Risch: Griffith brings to the position a wealth of knowledge on the issues. He has the knowledge, he knows how to do the job. We need to oversee that and make sure it is done right. Thank you for the comments. Further debate? There being no further debate, clerk will call the roll. [roll call]
▶ 0:33:01Chair Risch: Senator cruz, do you wish to be recorded as aye? Senator cruz will be recorded as aye. Motion is passed. Mr. griffith will be referred to the floor as recommended. The last one we have is adam cassady of virginia, to be , ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy. Is there a motion, second?
▶ 0:33:31Chair Risch: There is a motion and second that Mr. cassady be recommended. There being no debate, the clerk will call the roll. [roll call]
▶ 0:34:14Chair Risch: The motion is passed. Mr. cassady will be referred to the floor with recommendation he be confirmed. That completes our business agenda.
▶ 0:34:24Sen. Shaheen: Mr. chairman, before we end this business meeting, I just want to register again my concern at the failure of the state department and this administration to forward career ambassadors to this committee. I think we have approved if then 10 career ambassadors. We have half of our embassy posts around the world unfilled.
▶ 0:34:53Sen. Shaheen: China has by far a larger footprint in terms of diplomats and the united states does. Yet, the state department and administration continues to sit on career nominees and not forward them to us. I hope we will register this committee's concern about that.
▶ 0:35:11Chair Risch: I have done so, and intend to continue to do so. I appreciate your thoughts on that regard. With that, we will close that part of this meeting and proceed to a hearing that we have sent today regarding "sabotage in the baltic sea, implications for european security, and lessons for the indo-pacific." I will make a few opening remarks and then give it to senator shaheen to do likewise.
▶ 0:35:43Chair Risch: We will then hear from our witnesses, and then we will open up to a round of questioning from members of the committee. As we sit here today, thousands of miles of cables and pipelines running under the sea, power the global economy. Subsea cables carry more than 95% of the world's communications traffic and transit more than $10 trillion in financial transactions every day.
▶ 0:36:12Chair Risch: Let me say that again, $10 trillion in financial transactions. These more than 20,000 miles of underwater oil and gas pipelines and electric transmission cables are vulnerable to attack by our adversaries. That has become obvious in recent years. Since 2022, there have been at least eight undersea sabotage incidents in the baltic sea, and likely they are the responsibility by russia.
▶ 0:36:40Chair Risch: Russia has developed warfare capabilities as well as low-tech options that mimic the effects of an anchor dragging on a sea to hide his behavior. It maintains a specialized fleet of so-called research vessels run by a russian military unit masquerading as a research agency known by its russian acronym ofg two weeks agoucci.
▶ 0:37:07Chair Risch: Together to map out subsea infrastructure in the north atlantic likely to prepare for a future sabotage operation. In 2024, a russian shadow fleet tanker attended to evade oil sanctions, seized by the finnish coast guard after it cut four subsea internet cables and eight power cables. In response to these incidents, nato and the eu have stepped up their response particularly through the maritime center, military patrols in the baltic.
▶ 0:37:36Chair Risch: But as always, more needs to be done. Russia is not the only bad actor. China's military has conducted research into cable cutting technologies and taiwan has reported five incidents of likely sabotage in the last two years. That is not just bad luck. Like russia, china has also use commercial vessels to hide it sabotage. Additionally, as chinese companies leverage state subsidies to dominate the subsea cable market.
▶ 0:38:07Chair Risch: Allowing one of our foremost adversaries to operate in such a manner creates significant risks. We cannot allow this. Undersea sabotage, we need to call it out when it happens and say publicly who did it, if possible. We also need a concerted international effort to improve the resiliency of undersea infrastructure and prevent or mitigate these attacks when they happen. I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses about how we can address the growing threat of undersea sabotage.
▶ 0:38:39Chair Risch: Senator shaheen.
▶ 0:38:40Sen. Shaheen: Thank you, Mr. chairman, welcome to the witnesses. Thank you for being here today. Last winter, damage to a tele-communications cable between finland and estonia was detected. Authorities looked at maritime traffic in the area and found one ship that stood up, a cargo ship dragging its anchor, from st. Petersburg, russia. I'm sure that comes as no surprise to either of you.
▶ 0:39:06Sen. Shaheen: They seized the boat, gathered evidence, and opened a criminal investigation. As we know, it was not an isolated incident. As the chairman said, multiple undersea cables in the baltic were cut this year, each time involving civilian vessels.
▶ 0:39:21Sen. Shaheen: This is a strategy that I fear is being carried out by russia's shadow fleet and by other adversaries of the united states , extends beyond the baltic to undersea cables near the united kingdom to oil and gas installations in the north sea. Putin is testing a model of conflict, and the question is, our U.S. sanctions keeping pace with how russia is operating? In my view, they are not keeping pace and russia is exploiting the cap.
▶ 0:39:53Sen. Shaheen: Russia continued to generate billions through its shadow fleet, exploiting gaps between U.S., european, and u.k. Enforcement, and at a moment when pressure should be increasing, the signal from the U.S. has been mixed. Ships keep moving and revenue keeps flowing, and russia keeps pushing the boundaries. This allows russia to sustain its war in ukraine, and these kinds of activities in the baltic. The infrastructure targeted in the baltic is not unique to europe.
▶ 0:40:23Sen. Shaheen: Similar vulnerabilities exist in the indo pacific including around taiwan as we saw from our visit there, bipartisan delegation including three members of this committee who visited there in april. Mr. chairman, I like to enter a statement into the record from subcom, a U.S. company based in new hampshire that builds and maintains undersea cables, as well as a report from the international connectivity coalition for the record. If that is ok.
▶ 0:40:53Chair Risch: It will be admitted into the record. Thank you.
▶ 0:40:57Sen. Shaheen: As we know, much of the infrastructure for undersea cables is privately owned and it is unevenly protected. Repair capacity is limited and it takes time to fix the brakes. Attribution for a tax still takes weeks and even then intent is hard to prove. We need to recognize that that infrastructure is national security.
▶ 0:41:23Sen. Shaheen: I am sure we are going to hear lots of good recommendations from our witnesses this morning about how we can impose costs when attribution is slow, intent is hard to prove, and what we should be doing in terms of ensuring the security of these undersea cables. Again thank you both for being here. I look forward to your testimony.
▶ 0:41:43Chair Risch: Thank you, senator shaheen. We will not hear from our witnesses. First we have Dr. benjamin schmitt, senior fellow at the university of pennsylvania where he holds a joint academic appointment with physics and astronomy and the kleinman center for energy policy, and also serves as a director at the perry world house university of pennsylvania. He is currently researching sabotage activity near taiwan.
▶ 0:42:16Chair Risch: Dr. schmitt, the floor is yours.
▶ 0:42:17Dr. Schmitt: Thank you, chairman risch, ranking member shaheen, the stingless members of the senate foreign relations committee. My name is Dr. devin nunes schmidt. I served as energy security advisor at the department of state and currently a senior fellow at the diversity of pennsylvania and the center for european policy analysis. I'm honored to speak with you all today. The role is at war.
▶ 0:42:41Dr. Schmitt: We meet 1525 days since the put regime unleashed its full-scale invasion of ukraine and now this year iranian regime has learned from russia's air more in ukraine and launched kinetic drone and missile strikes against the energy infrastructure of many of the united states partners and allies across the middle east. For the first time in decades, these air wars have spread across the global maritime domain and all with dire costs.
▶ 0:43:13Dr. Schmitt: The irgc has fomented a global energy crisis by recklessly blocking the strait of hormuz while its proxies in your method to multiply the damage by resuming attacks in the street. The gremlin continues to work overtime on the high seas, standing up a taker shadow fleet to evade oil sanctions. Besides dodging trade sanctions, these tankers may be dual use platforms for espionage, sabotage, and drone lunches.
▶ 0:43:32Dr. Schmitt: Meanwhile there's another war being waged on a shadow war in europe against energy and critical info structure, undermining the security of naval never states, not only on land but offshore, roiling the depths of the bearing and baltic seas. European partners have a tribute to russia attacks to onshore facilities as a and telecom situations. The strategy includes recruitment of non-russian nationals including ukrainians to damage critical infrastructure to so panic and undermine support for ukrainian victory across the west.
▶ 0:44:03Dr. Schmitt: While attribution for onshore attacks has been common, technical and political challenges have remained for offshore sabotage attribution despite data-driven evidence suggesting the kremlin's role. Unfortunately, our partners across the indo pacific now face them on their subterfuge. There have been similar incidents of cyber honest subsea cables being severed suggesting sabotage carried out at the pass of the people's republic of china.
▶ 0:44:29Dr. Schmitt: The senate needs to use today's hearing to catalyze further action that makes it clear boat to moscow and beijing that there subsea sabotage is free ends here. While the senate must drive the policy conversation, academia has a role to play. I have let the university of pennsylvania's underwater mayhem research project, focusing on analyzing how russia and the prc now brazenly conduct physical sabotage attacks against the seabed energy and critical infrastructure across the nato alliance and beyond. Four key studies include the following. Number one, svalbard.
▶ 0:45:01Dr. Schmitt: I travel to the norwegian island of small bard 400 miles from the north pole, supported our assessment that it is highly probable that in january 2022, a russian fishing trawler was it possible for severing a vital subsea fiber-optic cable transmitting commercial data from the ground station to the european mainland. So it commercial would prove vital in ukraine's defense weeks later, leading to our conclusion that this was likely a shaping operation before the full-scale invasion. Number two, nord stream.
▶ 0:45:32Dr. Schmitt: Official attribution of the september 20 22 nord stream 1 and two sabotage remains absent and despite continued public debate from our research team assesses as probable that the russian federation was involved in this high-profile sabotage incident and assesses improbable the median narrative that a so-called pro ukraine sailboat launched from a marina next to a nord stream logistics hub was to blame.
▶ 0:45:54Dr. Schmitt: We arrive at this assessment after exhausting open source data analysis and interviews with first responders across europe and experts, and technical counter analysis of competing theories of the case. I also charted a vessel from denmark to travel to the blast site itself and gathered data in 2024. Number three, the baltic sea.
▶ 0:46:16Dr. Schmitt: I sailed on vessels offshore in the goal of finland and the central baltic near the sites of several extended anchor drag incidents by russia and china connected vessels which crippled seabed installations including the 2020 three baltic connector gas pipeline break, 2024 c line ecs telecom cables cut, and the 2024 electricity cable cut. The circumstances of these incidents are just sabotage, not accidents. Fourth and finally, taiwan.
▶ 0:46:44Dr. Schmitt: I travel to taiwan near the site of the 2020 of the transpacific cable which links to taiwan with united states. I also visited locations close to the sites of the 2023 and 2025 cuts of telecom cables linking taiwan islands to the main island of taiwan. All of these incidents involved prc linked vessels, and thanks to taiwan's actions, a prc chinese captain is now sitting in a jail cell for sabotage.
▶ 0:47:11Dr. Schmitt: I also conducted research near the center of the taiwan street, going in, donning a wetsuit to see subsea cables running through the cola reef. Senators, it is time to turn the tables on the prudent and she regime and ensure security. I leave you with three recommendations.
▶ 0:47:30Dr. Schmitt: Number one, the center for the indication of nato's article for consultative mechanisms by concerned members wherever there is sabotage incidents attributed to russia or its agents which is essential to solidify political and operational support to counter the threat. Number two, this committee should revive the statutory sanctions against nord stream 1 and two that were allowed to sunset in 2024.
▶ 0:47:53Dr. Schmitt: He stepped to ensure that no investor, american or otherwise, can work to resurrect the symbols I russia's energy weaponization and correction. Finally, congress should pass the comprehensive strategic subsea cables act of 2026 and the critical undersea infrastructure resilience act, both have been brutally passed already by this committee.
▶ 0:48:15Dr. Schmitt: Through these actions, we can deter further russian and chinese sabotage, support our partners and allies worldwide, and make it clear to those who we think are the lies there can never be again a return to so-called business as usual with regimes that continue to attack the physical foundations of our economy, prosperity, and freedom. Take you so much. I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:48:35Chair Risch: Great remarks and recommendations. We will now hear from Mr. o'brien. Mr. o'brien is a distinguished visiting fellow at the european council on foreign relations. He focuses on efforts to strengthen the transatlantic relationship. Previously, Mr.
▶ 0:48:59Chair Risch: O'brien served as assistant secretary of state for european and eurasian affairs and the biden administration and as head of the office of sanctions coordination. Mr. o'brien, the floor is yours.
▶ 0:49:10Mr. O'Brien: Thank you, Mr. chairman, ranking member, senator ricketts from my home state. Your statements made the case. Undersea infrastructure is critical for america's prosperity and security. Russia and china are attacking it. We at least have to plan as if they will attack it in a time of greater attention. Now, I cannot compete with Dr.
▶ 0:49:39Mr. O'Brien: Schmitt's field activities, especially the wetsuit, so I'm going to focus on the policy implications of this. What is the first? The first is we can deter now or pay later, just a simple timeless lesson. Russia and china are testing where they can, they are doing it undersea, doing it on the surface, doing it on land in a wider sabotage campaign. If we don't call them out and respond, we are going to face increased pressure.
▶ 0:50:10Mr. O'Brien: I note how that cost against basic objectives of this administration. Diplomats are now out, trying to get european companies, country to sign up to long-term american lng contracts. That has to be delivered through terminals that have large undersea exposure. Why are they going to sign up to that if we are not acting robustly to protect the infrastructure? That is an important point.
▶ 0:50:38Mr. O'Brien: There is a real risk of escalation with our current posture because all the tinder is laid. You have european countries facing pressures at home to answer russian threats. You have russia and china seeking if they can push things further. I think you need to have a strong U.S. hand to demonstrate there is no escalation or hedge to russia and china if they continue down this path. So this is the way of getting more peace by moving now.
▶ 0:51:09Mr. O'Brien: That is especially because the group of countries most affected in the baltic are the fighting flank of nato. They will be the ones that spend enough, who stand with us, who go with us, who protect the arctic. If we don't help defend them, russia and china will believe we will not help defend anyone. Very simple. What is it that we should do? One lesson is that solidarity works. Mr.
▶ 0:51:34Mr. O'Brien: Chairman, you laid out many of the steps that have been taken by nato and european union and others with a really strong bipartisan support from this committee and members of other committees. It's been a great effort. When I speak to colleagues in the baltic states or across the nine countries that are on those waterways, they say these nato missions, air and sea come have made a tremendous difference. The transparency of where the infrastructure is and how to track the ships is very helpful.
▶ 0:52:04Mr. O'Brien: This carries to the indo pacific, so we had built very strong across administrations, very strong ties across european countries and the asian countries who are most dependent on undersea infrastructure. That has to continue so that the lessons can be learned. Secondly, we need to name and sanction the ships, individuals, institutions responsible. I strongly support to the mobiles this committee is putting forward that include sanctions or authority.
▶ 0:52:35Mr. O'Brien: It helps a great deal to have authority that is tied to disruption of undersea infrastructure. We could use maybe some of the sanctions authorities pertaining to russia but there will be those, particularly in this administration, who say that we don't want to name and shame particular russians. We can do this with a sanctions authority targeted to undersea infrastructure, and I think we can do it in a way that avoids raising gas and oil prices. The third thing is we have to confront the russian shadow fleet.
▶ 0:53:05Mr. O'Brien: This is between 400 and 900 vessels. 200 of them were designated by january 2025, nonsense by the united states. This is the deniable weapon that russia and china use to attack undersea infrastructure. The third thing -- let me talk about a second lesson. We need stability in our partnerships.
▶ 0:53:28Mr. O'Brien: I believe the future of the united states, our prosperity depends on innovative sectors like life sciences, technology, energy, and defense, operating in a marketplace of more than a billion rich consumers. These are our traditional partners. They will provide us with the materials, supply chains, the markets, and yes, the competitors, but want to operate under rules that we all share. That is the future for us.
▶ 0:53:58Mr. O'Brien: It will only work if undersea infrastructure is protected. The problem we have is, it is like any shopping center. Someone has to provide basic security, has to make sure it is cleaned up, make sure the place is reasonably attractive. That has always been the united states. Middle powers cannot provide these public goods against auditory superpowers like russia and china. The U.S. has to organize and sometimes has to be the one to provide them.
▶ 0:54:26Mr. O'Brien: You don't do that on a pay-as-you-go basis by saying this country uses this waterway more, this country uses that waterway less, so we pay differently. You have to do that with a certain amount of stability and an understanding that america will benefit with the stability of having a relationship that extends from australia up across northeast asia, across north america into europe.
▶ 0:54:49Mr. O'Brien: That set of friends and partners will guarantee us prosperity and security in the future, but only if we commit to providing the public goods that make it possible. And the undersea infrastructure and that this committee is calling our attention to is the first along that space of communication and a few other things, but this is the place to begin work. Thank you for your attention to it.
▶ 0:55:10Chair Risch: Thanks to both of you. One of the most important things you said is this is bipartisan. A lot of our hearings are totally -- are not totally bipartisan but this is certainly one of them. One of the questions I have, both of you made reference to the fact that countries are -- the two obvious violators are russia and china -- that they are still testing.
▶ 0:55:38Chair Risch: Maybe they are testing us, but this is not rocket science. You don't need engineers. You need a salty, old captain who is a good boat driver, and you can disrupt these cables and find them in relatively shallow water. Why do these continue to happen? Is it a test of our response, is that what they are looking for? Why are they continuing to test?
▶ 0:56:10Chair Risch: This really riles people up, get people fired up, no question about it. Why don't you start, Dr. schmitt.
▶ 0:56:15Dr. Schmitt: You have referenced, and we have heard already the incidence taking place in the gulf of finland. I want to make it clear, the baltic sea is a center for these sort of incidents in part because it is strategic for the russian federation and nato but also because it is a relatively shallow body of water that has a high density of subsea infrastructure to begin with. That is why statistically we are seeing more in the baltic sea than other locations.
▶ 0:56:41Dr. Schmitt: One of the things I want to say, in 20, on christmas day, a russian shadow fleet vessel tracked its anchor through both telecom cables and the sliink2 connector connecting estonia. When that broke, they came out in a special police forces to send it dramatically on the deck, sees the vessel, and send it into port.
▶ 0:57:07Dr. Schmitt: Part of the reason this specific and the structure was targeted was because the baltic states were trying to synchronize with the eu grid, electricity infrastructure, finally get off of -- throw off the yoke of the russian and belarusian electricity grid. By severing that, increasing the risk of the operation plan for about five weeks later. The other thing is the response. To your point, senator risch, that is the big point here.
▶ 0:57:37Dr. Schmitt: The finns put the crew on trial, and at the end of day, they let them go because they said they didn't have the jurisdiction because they were in the exclusive economic zone and not the territorial waters of finland. That's a problem but we saw a solution in taiwan. I visited the prosecutor in taiwan two weeks ago it had a long interview with him, to put this p.r.c. Captain in jail after sabotaging the island cable cut.
▶ 0:58:06Dr. Schmitt: The reason was of something called a results principal, basically saying no matter where these cables go outside of the territorial waters exclusive economic zone and beyond, the taiwanese government can prosecute and put away these folks were doing this because it has an on their society. That is a lesson that I think finland can take here.
▶ 0:58:24Chair Risch: You brought up something that has been really important to me, and that it was I was really disappointed when I heard what happened in finland. This a question is just nonsense. We prosecute people all the time that send drugs into the united states but have never set foot in the united states. A good example of that is a guy sitting in jail right now in new york.
▶ 0:58:51Chair Risch: I don't know what finland has to do to change its laws to grant jurisdiction, but like you said, the causation factor seems to me to be very easy. I hope they will do it, I hope everybody will do it. I appreciate you underscoring that. Like I said, it was incredibly disappointing. How many other countries do you think are in that same boat?
▶ 0:59:16Chair Risch: I cannot imagine that we would have that problem if somebody did that to us, we would reach easily under the causation doctrine.
▶ 0:59:23Dr. Schmitt: I think this is a great point that you mention, maduro being in jail in new york. That is a precedent that the taiwanese pointed out to me. If there was a scam artist in cambodia preying on citizens in taiwan, they would indict that person. They may not be able to extradite him but they can at least indict him. We can do the same thing against corrupt actors around the world, sanctioned russian oligarchs and all of these things.
▶ 0:59:49Chair Risch: Extradition is an entirely different issue from jurisdiction. Extradition is simply putting habeas on the guy and getting a hold of him. Jurisdiction is a legal principle, entirely different from that. I think the causation issue has been resolved decades ago, if not centuries ago.
▶ 1:00:12Dr. Schmitt: I just want to say, the problem that you mentioned for finland, the first thing from my reaction in november when that was dismissed because of jurisdiction, I said this would happen again. Sure enough, just six weeks later last year, another russian connected vessel did another sabotage run through that same water. We will have to find out what the finns do this time to get that right.
▶ 1:00:38Mr. O'Brien: If I may come it would help to have some U.S. assertion of jurisdiction. If we were using our sanctions authority, you would be able to apply some material support, criminal investigative capacity to this. And not get into arguments -- I used to be a sea lawyer briefly at the state department. It gave me a headache. I think you could avoid this not just by calling out others but by asserting U.S. jurisdiction.
▶ 1:01:04Chair Risch: We have something in common. Senator shaheen.
▶ 1:01:13Sen. Shaheen: I was just going to follow up on that a little bit. If taiwan was able to do that, was it under existing law that taiwan has? I guess this is for both of you. Why do we think that would be an issue in europe?
▶ 1:01:37Dr. Schmitt: Yes, senator shaheen, it was article four, I understand, of the taiwanese criminal code that says wherever these crimes happen, if they impact taiwanese citizens or the government, they have jurisdiction.
▶ 1:01:52Sen. Shaheen: Do either of you have insights into why this would not apply to finland or other european?
▶ 1:02:04Mr. O'Brien: I would be happy to do a little research and find it. The key is, we are seeing this now in the strait of hormuz. There are a lot of these waterways that were sources of warfare for a long time, so the european states reached an agreement to say the straits of copenhagen, these narrow waterways through the baltic sea, nobody will put their hands on them. That hands-off thing has been the basis of peace in the region.
▶ 1:02:34Mr. O'Brien: But it is fraying, and they need to take a look at it. But the exact rule that they should adopt, I don't have a quick recommendation.
▶ 1:02:40Sen. Shaheen: You were talking about sanctions, the idea that we should be thinking about sanctioning more vessels, which I totally agree with. Senator risch and I have a shadow fleet bill that would sanction a number of them, virtually sanction the shadow fleet wherever it exists.
▶ 1:03:04Sen. Shaheen: Can you talk about -- one of the things that I'm concerned about right now is the decision by this administration to lift the sanctions on russia's shadow fleet basically so that they can continue to gain revenue from oil and the war in iran.
▶ 1:03:30Sen. Shaheen: Can you talk about what that means, may mean for russia and their ability to continue to operate both in ukraine and with respect to other the various activities that they are engaged in?
▶ 1:03:42Mr. O'Brien: It is a windfall for russia. I will talk about the rationale for what the administration did. It is a windfall, just factually. Russia is making come in the first few weeks, 100 $50 million a day in tax revenue off of the extra sales, off the general license. Oil prices have gone up since then. We have extended the general license, some warships are loaded and heading to sea.
▶ 1:04:12Mr. O'Brien: They will be selling whatever the price is when they land. It will produce multiple billions of dollars by the time we work on way through this, assuming the iran conflict ends soon. Russia spent between 150 and 200 billion dollars a year on the war in ukraine. If it makes $50 billion as a result to this, that goes to the bottom line. That is not a good thing. There is a long term benefit to russia.
▶ 1:04:39Mr. O'Brien: They have had difficulty logging in long-term supply arrangements with china because the chinese do not want to be tied down. Now with difficulties in the strait of hormuz, difficulties elsewhere, there's a possibility that russia and china will tie up with infra structure including a gas pipeline and oil pipeline. That would mean U.S. sanctions would be even less effective next time we want to use them. Both of those things are a real cost.
▶ 1:05:06Mr. O'Brien: The admin's duration was doing it to alleviate the concerns of specific partners about a rapid increase in oil prices. I think the cost benefit analysis is difficult to make. For the oil that was already at sea at the time the straits were close, you could see something, but allowing ships to reload and emerge again is a real problem. This gets to the nature of the shadow fleet. It is outside our normal tools for stopping shipping.
▶ 1:05:36Mr. O'Brien: Because of the initial sanctions and the 600 ships that the eu and u.k. Have designated, more than half of the russian shadow fleet was not really operating. Now with a general license from the united states, more of those ships can set. The numbers I gave you earlier will underestimate the benefit they will get. There were ways to provide relief to the global oil market that would not have involved just allowing russia to load up and sell. I think there is a real cost that ought to be examined.
▶ 1:06:04Sen. Shaheen: I couldn't agree more. I think that cost also goes to benefit iran, because if we look at the ground that iran is using in this war, the number of those drones that they are still getting from russia and russia's ability to produce those drones, they are getting a huge benefit that we are basically providing to a country that is targeting not just our service members in
▶ 1:06:38Sen. Shaheen: The middle east with intelligence information, but our allies in the middle east. It makes absolutely no sense. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:06:47Chair Risch: Senator ricketts.
▶ 1:06:51Sen. Ricketts: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Dr. schmitt, you can track the disturbing pattern in the baltic, russian research vessels coincidently stop over infrastructure right as it fails. You are not just seeing the actions of a few rogue ships but you have the chinese maritime militia which has a fleet of thousands of civilian fishing vessels which are just.
▶ 1:07:17Sen. Ricketts: Proxies these vessels provide beijing a perfect screen for the activities, deceptive operations to target these subsea cables and threaten the digital lifeblood of the countries like taiwan which we have talked about, but also vietnam, the philippines, singapore. You also talk about the core problem being attribution. When a fishing boat snacks a cable, the calls it an accident.
▶ 1:07:47Sen. Ricketts: Given the difficulty in attribution, how can the U.S. and our partners move from this posture of reactive concern to him of rapid attribution?
▶ 1:07:55Dr. Schmitt: That is a big focus on our project, senator ricketts. I will give a few examples of a couple of the case studies we've done. Number one, you mentioned fishing vessels that snag a cable. The cable in the case of the small barn cut, it was the russian vessel. We saw it traced its line physically dragged his fishing equipment 126 times over one of the two cables.
▶ 1:08:28Dr. Schmitt: Unless there is incredibly good fishing and that specific spot in the middle of the bering sea, that is a sabotage operation. In terms of nord stream, we know there were russian seabed warfare vessels over the nord stream 1 blast site three days before the last, three months before the blast, and in addition to that, the nord stream 2 blast site had russian construction vessels, vessel sitting at the eventual blast site for almost 18 months ahead of that.
▶ 1:08:57Dr. Schmitt: You also had situations in which one of the so-called pro-ukrainian sailboat operatives, the person that helped rent this so-called sailboat, was a person that had a passport that showed they lived in kerch, posting on social media messages from the russian federation after the incident took place.
▶ 1:09:21Dr. Schmitt: What is more, this sale what is more, this s sailboat went from a marina to the nord stream 2 logistics center. All of this need to be taken into account and use a data-driven approach to look at this case. That is why we thought it was probable in our study that the russians were behind the nord stream case. The last thing I will say is that on all of these incidents, whether taiwan or russia, these two countries may or may not be officially cooperating in this case, but they are definitely learning from each other.
▶ 1:09:52Dr. Schmitt: The baltic connector pipeline that was broken in 2023 in which a chinese flag cargo ship, was being escorted a few meters away by the russian nuclear class I breaker -- icebreaker. We've also seen the same vessels show up in the antarctic treaty system as russia looks for oil and gas, and they are stopping above cables as they go up and down. This is a global phenomenon both for china and russia.
▶ 1:10:22Dr. Schmitt: We need to do more to basically have more political courage to call out and call a spade a spade as quickly as possible.
▶ 1:10:31Sen. Ricketts: Technical or regular things that we need to change or just a matter of us getting to attribution quickly and then calling them out?
▶ 1:10:38Dr. Schmitt: The biggest thing we can do is increase our geo-satellite activity to declare actors. It is simply too long. Even though we eventually may get there, if you have commercial data, that can be -- it is never classified. It is ready to go right away. Investigators can use this.
▶ 1:11:01Dr. Schmitt: I saw a case in which the office of foreign assets control of the treasury department was able to quickly sanction russian vessels that took lng from a facility near vermont under sanctions because that was out in the press. There was commercial satellite data. Supporting the sort of regulatory oversight, nay to operations that it needs to take in europe's case, to get to attribution.
▶ 1:11:27Sen. Ricketts: Would you say that russia and china are relatively less dependent on undersea cables than our allies and the united states? Is there an asymmetric advantage they have?
▶ 1:11:38Dr. Schmitt: There is no asymmetric advantage unaware of. 99% of the global internet runs through this cables and impacts russia and china.
▶ 1:11:46Sen. Ricketts: If someone is cutting the cable to russia and china, that would impact them as well?
▶ 1:11:52Dr. Schmitt: Absolutely.
▶ 1:11:55Chair Risch: Let's go back for a minute to that jurisdictional question. It seems to me, my impression is that we don't have the statute that is directly end point as far as a causation standpoint that gives us jurisdiction. Am I right on that? I suppose some U.S. attorney would have to stick his nose in the books and find some way to do that.
▶ 1:12:21Chair Risch: It would be easier if we had a direct statute that prohibited this kind of conduct, because again, you get in front of a judge, they get group c on stuff.
▶ 1:12:33Mr. O'Brien: I don't know about a direct criminal statute. If we use the sanctions of authority, that does provide for criminal investigations subsequent to that. That is why I think both using the authorities we currently have which tend to be russia-based as they apply here, but the new authorities you are proposing would help address some of this gap.
▶ 1:12:55Chair Risch: I guess criminal investigations is a long way from a criminal prosecution. It seems to me that we need a direct statute here. That would make it a lot easier. If nothing else, it would allow an indictment, even if he could not get your hands on the person and underscore that this was going on.
▶ 1:13:15Mr. O'Brien: If I may, as a policymaker, what I would hate to see is these cases disappear into a legal process that takes years and years.
▶ 1:13:25Chair Risch: I agree 100%. Disappearing is a problem. As long as that warrant is standing out there, it isn't going to disappear.
▶ 1:13:35Dr. Schmitt: I totally agree on the sanctions point. The u.n. Law of the sea can only go so far. We saw in the case of a russian shadow fleet vessel, it was interdicted and brought into estonia. I saw this vessel as it was being interdicted in april 2025. They couldn't keep that vessel there even though it was under eu sanctions because of the authorities they had.
▶ 1:14:03Dr. Schmitt: Just six months later or so in september, that same vessel, that have been renamed, was the one that was suspected of launching grounds, military drones from the russian federation, as it was passing denmark, shot down the copenhagen airport. I worked with investigative journalist to look at the satellite data, and we found that vessel.
▶ 1:14:32Dr. Schmitt: Ultimately, the french french ns able to interdict that vessel and during the proceedings that have taken place legally, they have admitted their original definition security personnel on those vessels. That is something we need to be concerned about.
▶ 1:14:47Chair Risch: Senator shaheen.
▶ 1:14:51Sen. Shaheen: That is really frightening point. As we think about how do we do that, I was sanctions are one option that we have. What else should we be thinking about? I was in copenhagen and I met with the person in their government who is working on this issue, their head of infrastructure.
▶ 1:15:17Sen. Shaheen: One of the things she said to me, I was asking her about this whole issue of how are you all dealing with this? This is more of an issue for you than for us read she said, well, the eu is working on the idea of having ships that can do repairs in a timely manner because the options, as I understand, met with a japanese company that
▶ 1:15:48Sen. Shaheen: Does subsea cables and we were talking about how do you deal with cable breaks? They said, well, we track those but we don't repair them. That has to be done by whoever owns the cables. In order to do that, they said, you know, basically, two options. One is you need a bunch of ships that can do the repairs and you need to have duplicate cables so that if one goes out, of another one that can replace it.
▶ 1:16:18Sen. Shaheen: It seems to me based on your testimony and the conversations that I have had, that is not the answer to the problem. The answer to the problem is to figure out how we can put in place ways to go after the vessels and the countries that are doing -- trying to disrupt these subsea cables. Clearly to date, the U.S.
▶ 1:16:51Sen. Shaheen: Government has not been willing to sanction the vessels that we seem to be aware of. In fact, as we discussed earlier, Mr. o'brien, giving a windfall to russia so they can do more of this in the future. What should we be thinking about if we are really going to address this? Dr. schmitt, is the data you have made public?
▶ 1:17:18Dr. Schmitt: Yes, it is. We have a first volume in underwater mayhem volume 1 out and we will have in the next few months, do not ask when a phd dissertation is going to be submitted but will say in a few months volume two is coming out. First of all come in the case of repair vessels, there has to be more redundancy. There has to be or put on the water.
▶ 1:17:42Dr. Schmitt: Two years ago when I was in taipei, those I spoke to asked me specifically, should we have a domestic repair capability in taiwan and I said yes. Just a few weeks later, they asked me and I said absolutely yes. The cables that were cut from these islands of taiwan near the coastline, those had an internet outage of weeks and weeks which could have been shorter if they were not waiting for consortium vessels to come in.
▶ 1:18:10Dr. Schmitt: I told him in case of quarantine or innovation of taiwan, it is going to be very difficult -- they won't take that risk in a time of war. We need, as you said, consistent sanctions policy. Your shadow fleet bill you and senator risch, we had senator whitehouse a few weeks ago talking about this. Those are essential.
▶ 1:18:38Dr. Schmitt: That will deprive the putin regime of these windfalls. We need policy whether it be no waivers in the previous administration for nord stream ii I no waivers for russian oil today. It has to be consistent to keep the boot regime in check.
▶ 1:18:52Sen. Shaheen: I agree. I am sure you're going to add to this, Mr. o'brien come not only would have an impact on putin but on xi in china and what they are doing. Obviously, they are benefiting from the oil being delivered by the shadow fleet below market prices.
▶ 1:19:10Mr. O'Brien: One, the information available now I think increases the responsibility of the U.S. policymakers. If I had had access to the kind of information Dr. schmitt is providing, we would have designated everybody he just listed. That and the fact it is public makes it easier to bring other countries on board. We need the U.S. to organize an active coalition.
▶ 1:19:38Mr. O'Brien: I focused on sanctions but I think it also needs physical presence at sea. The straits of copenhagen are a particular point of concern. There are examples of the U.S. doing this based on the kind of authorities we already have as long ago as the w. Bush administration, the organized and effective voluntary coalition to address north korea's activities. I think that is available in this area if we put --
▶ 1:20:07Sen. Shaheen: Thank you both. I am actually headed down to an armed services hearing where I will race the same question. Thank you both.
▶ 1:20:16Chair Risch: Senator barrasso.
▶ 1:20:21Sen. Barrasso: Thank you. Undersea is essential. Very interesting book that outlines all of the damage being done. You look at some of the undersea cables in terms of where they are, we intentionally wanted to map them when they were late so there were not be accidental injury. So people know where they are.
▶ 1:20:52Sen. Barrasso: Seems ongoing sabotage. Discuss a situation where cables are cut. I want to know if there are backups that exist that work to ensure communications can continue if cables are cut?
▶ 1:21:03Dr. Schmitt: That is incredibly important point. Number one, to remind everyone since this is for the record, there is no satellite-based panacea for all of the global internet that is going beneath the sea. I think everyone your star lincoln thinks, oh, I will just use that. In the case of taiwan, they built 700 some odd uplink is backups but that is for the government, emergency use.
▶ 1:21:30Dr. Schmitt: They have microwave links from their outlying islands to the main island of taiwan. I think senator barrasso what you raised is, yes, there are maps on purpose so these actors don't cut it. We need to make sure some of these cables in the future are buried deliberately below the seabed to make sure anchor drugs can be mitigated to some extent.
▶ 1:21:55Dr. Schmitt: These are the technical measures and monitoring and underwater and man cables as well.
▶ 1:22:02Sen. Barrasso: What is accidental and what is not? I don't know you have an assessment of how much these are truly accidental and what is deliberate.
▶ 1:22:13Dr. Schmitt: I will give you a preview of underwater mayhem volume two coming soon. We will look and have talked to ship captains, subsea divers from all sorts of technical people that work in this industry not just -- what we found is there is no chance in a lot of these cases that these are just "just accidents." dragging an anchor for one nautical mile because you lost
▶ 1:22:44Dr. Schmitt: Steerage is possible. Dragging it for 200 nautical miles severing cables and pipelines along the way, that is not normal action and that is not what we should be accepting. I will say one last thing, we are conflating the issue of the shadow fleet with some of these vessels and people are saying, oh, well the shadow fleet is low-grade of repair, that captains. Of course they are accidentally cutting these. The truth is only one or two have been cut by shadow fleet vessels. Most are vessels in good repair.
▶ 1:23:16Sen. Barrasso: Are two newest nato allies, what is been happening there?? How much of this is -- what are your thoughts on this?
▶ 1:23:34Dr. Schmitt: I have breathed the north atlantic council's energy security version -- they do this once a year. I called on member states to invoke article iv. My understanding is one or two member states have pushback on this. Iv used this year when drones flew from the russian federation and to airspace. We saw it in estonia last year when fighter jets went into their airspace.
▶ 1:24:03Dr. Schmitt: Why haven't we seen it for subsea cables? Part of the reason is this is something that some political actors in europe and possibly in the united states do not want to "escalate" so we need to say, look, we need to raise this to the political level. It also unlocks operational support to build out things like operation baltics injury which I think has been successful to deter some of these actions.
▶ 1:24:27Senator Barrasso: There was a fleet is subsidized cable repair ships to help address the risk. Are the current capabilities for repair sufficient for the level of sabotage?
▶ 1:24:39Dr. Schmitt: Absolutely not. We have limited capabilities in the taiwan strait. Taiwan does not have domestic capability, not a repair capability. In a time of war, that is insufficient. We also see there are consortia of cable repair vessels in europe but not enough. You need more redundancy of the cables and repair capabilities, and that can start to make that Dr.
▶ 1:25:07Dr. Schmitt: Singh, well, maybe not so useful to do this because guess what? We are not going to get away with it.
▶ 1:25:11Sen. Barrasso: Are there steps we should be taking out to reduce the leverage rush is getting from these attacks?
▶ 1:25:17Dr. Schmitt: We need to be absolutely increasing sanctions especially through the shadow fleet bill and make sure we are holding the putin regime to account for these activities. Name and shame. I know it is not the biggest, flashiest thing but that is important. I know the subsea act that has been passed out of this committee also says the U.S.
▶ 1:25:44Dr. Schmitt: Intelligence community and the state department need to send a list publicly and list out all of the subsea mission director that does he sort of heinous acts, they need to list us publicly so we don't just say, oh, it is probably shadow fleet vessel or intelligence vessel. This is a vessel specifically built by russia to inflict pain on global democracies. We need to know this early and often so states can take action to bar them from their ports or issue sanctions at other things like this.
▶ 1:26:12Chair Risch: Senator curtis.
▶ 1:26:15Sen. Curtis: Thank you. This committee recently passed a bill that I have a senator rosen that contains an initiative to monitor time undersea cables and proposes new sanctions. I'm going to jump into a few questions but I wanted to pick up where my colleague left off. I was in taiwan with a ranking member couple of weeks ago. We visited one of the factories that produces the cable.
▶ 1:26:41Sen. Curtis: We were all very curious about what they were doing to prevent breaks. Whether it is undersea monitoring or cameras. What we found is zero motivation because they produce cables. Their answer was, just lay more cables. I'm curious, what are your experiences? We have a motivation problem?
▶ 1:27:07Sen. Curtis: It feels like very little effort to put in equipment that could monitor and see a problem coming before he got there. What is your experience?
▶ 1:27:16Dr. Schmitt: I visited a factory -- I did not go in because the backup the the building is under construction. That is for electricity cables. This is an energy security question for taiwan as well. Offshore wind and can either connect to their outlying islands. One of the things -- this is more from a physics standpoint.
▶ 1:27:38Dr. Schmitt: If you put a fiber optic cable in a seabed, you can start to monitor the acoustic, vibrations of the seabed -- sorry, sea surface vessels on things like this around I. This is what happened in the case of the telecoms line when last year this vessel from china cut the cable.
▶ 1:28:04Dr. Schmitt: The taiwanese coast guard was alerted by the telecom company right before the cable cut took place because they knew this vessel was sitting there. They acted a few hours later when they got their armada together to seize the vessel and they found an empty chinese vessel that was a bulk carrier that had no bulk on it. Its cargo doors were rusted shut so it could not be used for that. It was only used as sabotage vessel.
▶ 1:28:31Dr. Schmitt: The prosecutor I talked to liken it to a "pawn sacrifice from the prc which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org] xi sending out a vessel he doesn't care to lose. It has already been deconstructed and scrapped. I asked for a piece of it and I don't know where it is.
▶ 1:28:47Sen. Curtis: I know I am late to the hearing so if you've already discussed this, indulge me. If there is major disruption to taiwan with multiple cables coming impact militarily and economically potentially could happen.
▶ 1:29:02Dr. Schmitt: Often a discussion of taiwan does have redundancy, something like 14 cables connecting out to the global internet. Also cables to the pongo islands and elsewhere like this. I've often been asked, we have this redundancy so china could not possibly cut all 14 cables. I said, you've got another think coming because guess what?
▶ 1:29:25Dr. Schmitt: If they can cut one or two cables by dragging and anchor pretty easily and an all-out military assault or inpatient or even a blockade or quarantine, those can be cut pretty quickly. But that will have is immediate impact on the global economy. It is like the streets of hormuz -- streets of hormuz internet.
▶ 1:29:44Dr. Schmitt: It means our economic trade with taiwan which is significant will be cut off not just for us but our core partners and allies and I will tell you it will make military coordination more difficult. It won't stop it because there is satellite backup but it is something we really need to think of. I have talked with folks in taiwan that are in the military. I think it needs to be part of the military's doctrine in taiwan that cable repair -- rapid cable repair under fire is important as well to deter this.
▶ 1:30:14Sen. Curtis: We have learned a lot from taiwan, what is happening there. What lessons can we apply to the baltic and what should we be doing in the baltic that we learn from the indo-pacific?
▶ 1:30:26Dr. Schmitt: I think one of the biggest things is repair capabilities. We need more repair capabilities in europe. We need a legal system that allows for attribution and jurisdictional questions. We mentioned already in this hearing and again, just like in taiwan where they are aware of this, we need european democracies to be ready to act and have that capability through nato to do so.
▶ 1:30:59Dr. Schmitt: >> the motivation problem I think is with the U.S. government. All of the undersea infrastructure, separate companies, others, they are all doing their work. It is unrealistic to expect them to monitor the activities of a predatory superpower. Same thing with mental powers. If they don't have the ability to stand up this is for the U.S. government to say, the future of our economy depends on this infrastructure. We have to make sure we have enough of it and we can repair it but we can protect it.
▶ 1:31:29Dr. Schmitt: That involves both more robust sanctions program, more physical presence and coordinating with others who are affected so they are able to operate effectively.
▶ 1:31:40Sen. Curtis: It feels to me like the technology is not that difficult, it is the will to put it in. Along these lines, and let me defer to you, you mentioned the one incident in taiwan where they were able to find the actor. How prepared are we defined the bad actors?
▶ 1:32:00Dr. Schmitt: We are prepared. The U.S. geospatial intelligence is strong. I think we need more commercial data to make sure satellite data can be released quickly so you sort of indictments can happen rapidly. The other thing I want to point out and it will bring it back to the nord stream case briefly and say we need to listen not only to policymakers -- no offense -- but technical experts lactose that work in the industry. People that build cables.
▶ 1:32:32Dr. Schmitt: People that are captains of the ships, dived to the bottoms of the seabed's. We have spoke to experts and they say the idea of using a rental sailboat to blow up nord stream is not technically impossible but it would never be used in this way. They said it is an insufficient platform that would have a large radar profile to begin with because of the sail obviously. And you would use a drone, cheap drone.
▶ 1:33:00Dr. Schmitt: There's a lot of media that have gone out and put a drone on the seabed and looked at the damage site, and they are proven you can put a drone down there with explosives. I went out and got seabed sonar equipment and you can go out there. Listening to the experts in a way that is integrated not only into our policy but our media and discussions of these -- it takes so long for attribution that this information can be so wed.
▶ 1:33:29Dr. Schmitt: Russia pointed the finger at the u.k., poland, the united states in the case of nord stream. And all these different directions to sow chaos after this happened. This disinformation campaign that seems precooked to me.
▶ 1:33:43Mr. O'Brien: We know much more today that even two and three years ago. The nato efforts, the eu efforts provide information very quickly. Having the access to the work that Dr. schmitt and others are doing in the public sphere, it increases the responsibility of policymakers to act quickly. Because we could no longer say we don't know or we can't share.
▶ 1:34:06Chair Risch: Thank you, for being here. Incredibly interesting and important and has spurred ideas I think amongst the committee here. With that, I will leave the record open until close of business tomorrow for further submissions. Thank you so much for being here. With that, the committee is adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]