• Satellite images obtained by Business Insider show work on Saudi Arabia's Neom project.
• Images appear to show a major palace for Saudi Arabia's ruler, Mohammed bin Salman.
• The palace has private beaches, extensive gardens, a golf course, and 10 helipads.

Satellite images obtained by Business Insider show a lavish palace that's been constructed as part of Saudi Arabia's $2 trillion Neom megacity project.

The images, which feature in a new Business Insider documentary and were captured by satellite firm Maxar Technologies in January, show a large palace on the Red Sea coast in the northeast of Saudi Arabia.

The images show a palace with private beaches, extensive gardens, a golf course, and 10 helipads.

The documentary based its identification of the palace as likely belonging to Saudi Arabian ruler Mohammed bin Salman on public data, including details in a 2018 Reuters report.

Information on the palace complex is sparse, but Reuters said that plans to build a complex of five royal palaces around 105 miles west of Tabuk were among the first Neom contracts to be awarded.

According to Reuters, the plans featured opulent buildings with Moroccan-style architecture, helipads, a marina, and a golf course — matching the development seen in the satellite imagery.

Neom is the centerpiece of Crown Prince Mohammed's plans to transition the Saudi economy away from fossil fuels and toward technology, innovation, and tourism.

The BI documentary highlights the project's most ambitious development, the construction of a 110-mile-long 'vertical city' called the Line, as well as controversies over Neom's design and environmental plans, as well as human rights concerns.

The entirety of the Line was initially scheduled to open by 2030, but now only a 1.5-mile "Hidden Marina" is likely to be ready by that date.

Crown Prince Mohammed has a lavish array of properties and assets, including a $300 million chateau in the South of France and a $400 million superyacht.

Saudi Arabia has channeled huge amounts of its oil wealth into funding the Neom project, but reports say it has struggled to attract foreign investments fast enough to realize its ambitious construction schedule.

Neom didn't respond to Business Insider requests for comment.

• Satellite images show the construction of Saudi desert megacity Neom.
• Among other things, they show the "Hidden Marina" being developed.
• A new Business Insider documentary examines whether Saudi Arabia can realize its project plans.

Satellite images obtained by Business Insider show the 'Hidden Marina' being billed as the first residential phase in scaled-back plans for Saudi Arabia's futuristic Neom megacity.

The marina, set to cost $140 billion, is part of The Line, a 110-mile-long "vertical skyscraper" residential and commercial complex in the northwest of the country, which is set to be a centerpiece of Neom.

The Line is the world's largest construction project, a $2 trillion megacity cutting through the Saudi desert.

The entirety of The Line was originally scheduled to open by 2030, but the 1.5-mile Hidden Harbor is the only part likely to be ready by that date, according to a new Business Insider documentary.

BI's documentary investigates controversies over Neom's design and environmental plans, as well as human rights concerns.

Denis Hickey, NEOM's Chief Development Officer, told an event in Riyadh this month that planners envisage the "Hidden Harbor" as a futuristic 500-metre-tall mirrored structure.

Hickey said the marina will stretch for 1.5 miles and contain hotels, shops, schools, and residential units for around 200,000 people.

Rendered images released to Saudi media show a large entrance running under the mirrored facade to the marina complex. It resembles plans for the rest of The Line, which is envisaged as a 200-metre-wide, 500-metre-high mirrored structure.

"We have already deployed significant resources to lay the groundwork for this ambitious urban revolution," Hickey said.

Satellite images obtained by Business Insider show that while the "Hidden Marina" is taking shape, work on other parts of The Line is less advanced, and little exists of much of the rest of the project apart from earthworks.

Neom is a key part of Saudi Arabian ruler Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious plans to transform his country's economy, pivoting it away from fossil fuels toward technology, innovation, and tourism.

But even The Line has been significantly scaled back compared to the original plans, which was to house one million people by 2030.

Bloomberg reported last year that Saudi authorities had altered their medium-term plans for The Line as they encountered obstacles in finding the money necessary for the project.

Nadhmi al-Nasr, the project's chief executive, also left his position last year for unspecified reasons.

Neom is opening in phases, with a luxury yachting island resort, Sindalha, welcoming its first visitors last October.

Saudi Arabia also has ambitious plans to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Neom mountain resort Trojena, as well as World Cup 2034 games in a rooftop stadium that will be part of The Line.

• President Donald Trump said it'd be "unfair" if Tesla opened a factory in India.
• Tesla is looking to build a presence in India, posting job ads for showroom workers this week.
• It has long been speculated that Tesla may have plans to build a production facility in India.

President Donald Trump said it would be "unfair" to the US if Elon Musk opened a Tesla plant in India — highlighting a rare point of difference in an interview designed to showcase the closeness of the president and his billionaire advisor.

In an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday, Trump criticized India's tariff policy, under which electric vehicles face import duties of up to 100%.

Trump argued that it was "impossible" for Musk to sell a car in India.

"Every country in the world takes advantage of us, and they do it with tariffs," he said, adding, "It is impossible to sell a car, practically, in, as an example, India."

"Now, if he built the factory in India, that's OK, but that's unfair to us," Trump said of Musk. "It's very unfair."

Trump went on to say that last week, in discussions with India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, in Washington, DC, he threatened to impose reciprocal tariffs on India if it continued to impose high tariffs on US goods.

"It's — it's like, fair is fair," Musk commented approvingly.

Tesla has long sought to build its presence in India, which is projected to become the fourth-biggest economy this year. The country's protectionist tariffs, however, have proved a major obstacle.

Last year, India said it would lower EV tariffs for companies prepared to invest in manufacturing in the country, fueling speculation that Tesla could build a production facility there.

Musk was expected to announce a major investment during a trip to India last April but postponed the trip when Tesla announced plans to lay off 10% of its staff.

This week, Tesla posted job ads for openings in showrooms in New Delhi and Mumbai. Reuters earlier reported that Tesla had chosen locations in both cities for the showrooms.

On Thursday morning, the company's jobs site showed more than a dozen open roles in India. Many listed both Mumbai and Delhi as possible working locations.

Musk's ambitions to expand Tesla's presence in India may put him at odds with Trump, who has championed a tough tariff approach to boost domestic manufacturing.

Musk's close relationship with Trump and reported involvement in key administration decisions have sparked concerns about conflicts of interest.

Musk, the world's richest man and the leader of firms including Tesla, X, and SpaceX, oversees the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, which seeks to slash federal spending.

Trump last week said that he didn't know whether Musk met with Modi in his capacity as a CEO or government advisor but that he was personally monitoring potential conflict-of-interest issues.

Trump said in the Tuesday interview that Musk "won't be involved" in situations where there's a potential conflict.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• The Pentagon is developing AI-enabled satellite technology.
• AI satellites offer advantages amid intensifying competition in space.
• They could supercharge data analysis and help evade the consequences of a Chinese cyber-attack.

A vast network of military satellites belonging to the US has long underpinned its dominance in space. But China is challenging the US status as the space superpower, and its satellite system is in the crosshairs.

Defense News reported last month that the US Navy is moving forward with plans to build a network of fully autonomous satellites that are able to navigate independently without GPS or ground control.

Analysts say that AI could help the US stay ahead, providing its satellites with the capacity to evade the consequences of a potentially crippling attack, as well as more power to collect and analyze large amounts of data.

The race for satellite dominance

The stakes in the battle for satellite supremacy are high, Melanie Garson, an associate professor in International Conflict Resolution & International Security at University College London, told Business Insider.

The winner would control a vital aspect of space infrastructure, which would also provide an advantage in intelligence gathering and precision strikes in the event of a war.

AI "will provide additional capabilities for surveillance and espionage as well as being able to interfere with the other's space assets through spectrum warfare or cyberattacks," Garson said.

The US has hundreds of military satellites in orbit, with China and Russia not far behind.

If a war were to break out between the US and China, military experts say that China has the capability to do serious damage to US space-based assets through a range of anti-satellite, or ASAT, capabilities, including programming its satellites to attack others.

A CIA report that leaked in 2023 said China was focusing its efforts in the event of a war on hacking the systems used to control US satellite networks.

Systems confrontation and destruction warfare is believed to be a preferred Chinese military tactic for 21st-century warfare.

Crippling these systems would leave satellites unable to transfer communications and data, or even coordinate with each other, the report said.

AI could be the key

AI for satellites could be crucial to preserving US capabilities. Unlike satellites that require human input, autonomous satellites can operate independently, processing and analyzing data to make their own decisions.

The autonomy makes them less vulnerable to possible attacks on bases or communications networks or to being cut off from operators by electronic warfare like signal jamming, said Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project and a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Decentralized decision-making may add resilience by decreasing the reliance on ground-based infrastructure," Krista Langeland, deputy lead of the RAND Space Enterprise Initiative, told BI. "AI capabilities could also help with detection and characterization of an attack."

Another advantage is that AI could help process vast amounts of data in space, and identify potentially hostile satellites more quickly.

"Space is huge," Swope said, "so AI will help satellites better understand what's happening around them and keep track of what other satellites are doing."

"That could help US satellites maneuver to avoid accidental collisions but also stay clear of potentially hostile adversarial satellites," he said.

A distant goal

The power of the technology to revolutionize US satellite technology and security is significant, Alison Grey, a satellites expert at PA Consulting, told BI.

"Ultimately, AI-enabled automation can enable a network to react and recover from various threats in space," she said, "whether that's from natural phenomena, anomalies in one's own system, or potentially hostile activity."

However, while the technology is already being applied in some military satellites, realizing its full potential is likely to be some way off.

Space Force's former top acquisition official, Frank Calvelli, told an event last year that he expects satellites to be "significantly more autonomous" within the next 10 to 15 years.

Even so, efforts are intensifying to begin realizing its potential. Defense News said that the US Navy is researching a fully autonomous model, the Autosat, and wants to take the tests further.

"We've done a demo of this and proven out the principles and are looking for the next step," Steven Meier, director of space technology at the Naval Research Laboratory, said at a recent summit in Virginia. "We want to get funding to actually build a system along these lines and launch it."

• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said AI posed an "extreme risk" in some scenarios.
• He told BBC News the technology could be used in "a bad biological attack from some evil person."
• World leaders discussed the risks and opportunities posed by AI at a summit in Paris this week.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned of the potential threat posed by AI in the hands of hostile states or terrorists and said it presented an "extreme risk" in some scenarios.

"Think about North Korea, or Iran, or even Russia, who have some evil goal. This technology is fast enough for them to adopt that they could misuse it and do real harm," he told BBC News, pointing to the risk of weapons being developed for "a bad biological attack from some evil person."

"I always worry about the 'Osama bin Laden' scenario, where you have a really evil person who takes over some aspect of our modern life and uses it to harm innocent people," Schmidt said.

He was referring to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, where terrorists from Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization hijacked planes and flew them into buildings.

Schmidt was speaking from the AI summit in Paris this week, where Vice President JD Vance criticized European regulations designed to restrict the technology's dangers.

Schmidt, who was Google CEO for a decade until 2011, has criticized European AI laws as being too strict, but in the interview, said that it was important for governments to regulate AI.

"It's really important that governments understand what we're doing and keep their eye on us," he said of private sector firms developing the tech.

Schmidt said he backed the Biden administration's restriction of sales of microchips that power AI to all but 18 countries not deemed to pose a threat.

It's not the first time Schmidt has warned of the dangers posed by AI. In December he said humans needed to have meaningful control of AI when it's used in military drones.

His startup, White Stork, is developing drones for Ukraine to use in its war with Russia.

At the summit, Schmidt also addressed China's rise as an AI tech power, telling The Financial Times the West needs to invest in open source AI models to keep pace.

"If we don't do something about that, China will ultimately become the open-source leader and the rest of the world will become closed-source," Schmidt said.

It comes after Chinese firm DeepSeek in January released an AI model developed more cheaply than US rivals such as ChatGPT, roiling stock markets.

DeepSeek's R1 is itself open-source, as is Meta's Llama. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has shifted to a closed-source approach.

Schmidt is 48th on the Bloomberg rich list with a net worth of $35.7 billion, largely derived from his 1% holding in Alphabet, which owns Google.

• Suspected Russian drones have been spotted near NATO bases in Germany.
• A report said that efforts to jam them did not work.
• It could expose an area where Russia's experience in Ukraine has given it a technological edge.

Suspected Russian drones are showing up outside sensitive sites, and Western nations may not be equipped to counter them.

One recent incident suggests that Russia may have deployed jamming-resistant drones to overcome the defenses at a military base — which analysts say could prove a significant vulnerability.

Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that a series of drones were spotted near a military base in Schwesing, northern Germany, on six occasions between January 9 and 29.

Ukrainian troops were training there with Patriot air-defense systems at the time.

The report, citing German intelligence, said the drones entered the base despite efforts to stop them.

German troops, it said, deployed a jamming system that should have scrambled the drones' guidance systems but did not.

Russia has developed sophisticated new drones that evade electronic warfare, as Business Insider recently reported. Ukraine has developed the technology too, seeking to catch up to its enemy.

Some are controlled by fiber optic cables instead of radio signals — it isn't clear what technology might have been at play in the German incidents.

A German military spokesman told Business Insider there had been "several sightings" of unknown drones near military sites, but declined to give further information, citing security concerns.

"The Bundeswehr takes these incidents very seriously," the spokesman said, using the German term for the armed forces. He said prosecutors had opened a case.

NATO did not respond to a request for comment.

It's the latest in a series of mysterious drone sighting at military bases in Europe that analysts believe may be part of a Russian espionage operation.

In December, the US military told Reuters that drones were spotted near the Ramstein military base in southwestern Germany, while Der Spiegel reported that month that drones had been sighted near industrial sites, including a plant of German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, which has been involved in making weapons for Ukraine in battling the Russian invasion.

Drones were also spotted near four US military bases in the UK in November.

The tech has played a pivotal role in the war in Ukraine, where both sides have deployed them for battlefield surveillance and as weapons.

A particularly intense area of that arms race has been jamming technology, with each side seeking to scramble the other's drones and stop the same happening to theirs.

While both Russia and Ukraine are fitting drones with fiber optic cables, other drones, such as the US-made V-BAT, have other ways to resist jamming.

The apparent success of the drones in Germany at resisting jamming raises questions about NATO's defenses, said Clayton Swope, a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"New drone tactics and technologies are being tested on the battlefields in Ukraine. The United States and its allies, including NATO, are just beginning to wrap our heads around this new threat and just figuring out how to face it," he told Business Insider.

Devices like lasers or other directed energy weapons could work against even jamming-resistant drones, but there are legal and logistical obstacles, he said.

"The challenge will be deploying those systems at scale to protect sensitive domestic locations and preparing to confront the same threats on a future battlefield," he said.

Some approaches are decidedly more old-school, with Ukraine arming some soldiers with shotguns meant to take out drones.

For its part, Russia is increasingly seeking to use technical expertise learned in Ukraine outside that conflict.

"Reports that a NATO member state is struggling to combat likely Russian reconnaissance drones demonstrate the need for NATO states to further develop their defensive capabilities as Russia continues to use its experience on the battlefield in Ukraine to innovate new technologies," The Institue for the Study of War, the US think tank, said on Monday.

• JD Vance addressed world leaders at an AI summit in Paris on Tuesday.
• He said excessive European-style regulation could "strangle" the technology.
• The EU has some of the world's strictest controls on tech firms, which have long riled Silicon Valley.

Vice President JD Vance warned that excessive regulation of AI could "kill" its development, criticizing Europe's regulation-heavy approach on its own turf.

Speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, Vance warned against Europe's "self-conscious" and "risk averse" approach to AI.

The moment was closely watched as his first overseas speech since taking office.

His audience included top European leaders like France's President Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen, the top official of the EU.

"It would mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations," said Vance of overregulation, citing benefits in fields such as economic innovation, job creation, national security, healthcare, and free expression.

Vance continued: "We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and we'll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies."

He said that the Trump administration would focus on building AI systems in the US, with chips designed and made there.

To spread those advances internationally, he said, other countries needed to cut their regulations.

"To create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it, and we need our European friends, in particular, to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation," he said.

He went on to warn against new regulations on US tech firms.

"The Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on US tech companies with international footprints," he said.

"Now, America cannot and will not accept that, and we think it's a terrible mistake, not just for the United States of America, but for your own countries."

Vance's speech contrasted with the Biden administration's AI policies, which attempted to provide a regulatory framework for the technology that more closely resembled Europe's approach.

Critics say regulations need to be comprehensive to address concerns that AI could wipe out jobs, or even pose a risk to humanity itself.

AI proponents say it could supercharge economies and help Western countries compete with an ascendant China.

Shortly after taking office, Donald Trump announced the Stargate Project, a $500 billion project to develop US AI infrastructure, and struck down a Biden executive order on regulating AI.

The EU is seeking to introduce a "code of practice" for advanced AI models to address concerns over possible misuse. US firms including Google have criticized that approach.

The EU has long clashed with US tech firms, issuing strict rules on data and privacy, levying large fines and seeking to raise taxes.

• Low-cost drones have been used as cheap and effective weapons in conflicts like Ukraine.
• The US military is rapidly developing its own tactics and ways to counter them.
• In January, Marines conducted live-fire training exercises using a new anti-drone system.

In footage released last year, a Ukrainian drone is filmed approaching a Russian tank. But instead of flying into its protective shield, the drone flies under it, exploding and obliterating the vehicle.

It was a vivid example of how off-the-shelf drones, which can cost as little as $1,000, are transforming the battlefield.

Ukraine has used drones to overcome Russia's major advantages in manpower and equipment, and Pentagon military planners have watched closely — drawing their own lessons.

The US military is now testing a range of equipment and tactics to defend against aerial drone attacks.

In January, US Marines conducted live-fire training exercises in Hawaii using a new anti-drone system, the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS.

The system allows Marines to detect, identify, and destroy drones using an arsenal of weapons, including canons, jammers, and machine guns, Stars and Stripes reported.

Last year, Defense One reported that the Pentagon was also planning to equip troops with handheld drone detection and jamming devices.

And in December, the Pentagon released a new counter-drone strategy aimed at coordinating how different branches of the military respond to the threat, and making "countering unmanned systems a key element of our thinking."

"Some of the character of warfare is changing right now," Col. John Lehane, commander of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser this month, of the MADIS test.

"And if we don't change, we're going to find ourselves in a bad spot," he said.

Drone tactics develop rapidly

Clayton Swope, a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider that anti-drone defenses have two core challenges — to detect drones and to neutralize them.

Systems like MADIS, which can travel with front-line forces and integrate drone detectors and interceptors, are an important development, he said.

"MADIS is a solution that operates at the pointiest end of the spear, providing air protections to marines who might have to storm the beaches in a future conflict," Swope said.

The system is carried by a pair of light, tactical vehicles, Stars and Stripes reported in January, and will next be used in joint exercises in the Philippines, to see how it handles humid conditions.

No 'silver bullet' for tackling drones

Zak Kallenborn, a drone analyst and affiliate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that there was no "silver bullet" for tackling drones, and that defenses "need to accommodate that variability."

"Drones vary greatly in capability and present threats across the whole of the military," he said.

"One big problem is we're only really learning about aerial drone tactics," Kallenborn added, "but drones also fly, swim, and swarm. It's tough to develop counter tactics against technologies that are only just beginning to be used."

The relative novelty of using drones in war also means tactics must evolve fast.

Russia has developed a sophisticated electronic warfare capability to counter drones by jamming the signals used to guide them. Meanwhile, Ukraine claims to have tested laser weapons to take out drones used by Russia to attack its cities and infrastructure.

According to The War Zone, multiple branches of the US military are experimenting with laser or microwave weapons to take down drones.

Ukraine, with the help of allies including the US and Germany, is also reportedly seeking to develop new drones to overcome Russia's jamming.

Raising the drone threat, Business Insider reported last year that a new type of attack might involve drones operated as part of a coordinated swarm. China is among the countries believed to be developing this technology.

To counter this, Swope said militaries like the US' might need to use AI as part of drone defenses, to analyze complex data beyond the capability of humans.

"Defensive systems will need to make decisions at a speed and scale that might challenge a human operator," he said.

In the short term, "MADIS and other systems like it will be critical to protecting infantry and artillery units from small drones," Swope said, "which Ukraine has shown are an impossible-to-ignore emerging threat to ground forces."

• Ukraine is testing laser weapons for use against Russian targets, a Ukrainian commander said.
• Vadym Sukharevskyi told RFE/RL that laser weapons are now hitting targets at "certain altitude."
• Lasers are likely best suited to countering drones, military analysts told BI.

Ukraine is testing laser weapons to target Russian drones and other aircraft, a Ukrainian military official said this week.

Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that Ukraine was developing several new military technologies — including laser weaponry.

He said that the technology was being developed to counter Russian aerial drone or UAV attacks, specifically those using Iranian-supplied long-range Shahed drones, which have a relatively low-altitude flight path.

"Laser technologies are already hitting certain objects at a certain altitude," he said.

This is the first time Ukraine has claimed to have deployed the weapon in tests. Sukharevskyi offered no details about where the weapon had been used, and Business Insider was unable to verify his claims.

Militaries around the world are increasingly looking to develop laser weapons.

Last year, the UK released images of its DragonFire weapon being test-fired. China, the US, and Israel also have laser weapons in the works.

At an event in Kyiv last year, Sukharevskyi said that a laser weapon named Tryzub was being tested by Ukraine and was capable of shooting down targets at an altitude of around 1.2 miles.

"It truly works, it truly exists," he said.

James Black, assistant director of the Defence and Security research group at RAND Europe, told BI that it was plausible that Ukraine was beginning to deploy high-energy laser systems in a limited, largely experimental way, but that "there are enduring technical, logistical, and operational challenges to deploying such systems at scale."

He said that questions remained around how to integrate the weapons with air defense systems and other military operations, how to ensure sufficient energy for them, and how to use them in adverse conditions like bad weather or smoke.

Nic Jenzen Jones, director of Armament Research Services, said that laser weapons made with commercially available technology need to be trained on their target for a longer time to disable them, making them more useful against slower-moving vehicles.

"Fast-moving aerial targets — such as fighter aircraft and many types of munitions — will be less susceptible to such a weapon," he said.

But military analysts say that laser weapons, which work by training a powerful laser beam onto the target to disable it, may offer an effective way of countering drones.

"There is a growing interest across global militaries in novel low-cost-per-shot ways of countering UAVs and other aerial threats," Black said.

However, he added that the weapons are not a "silver bullet," saying their main use would likely be to "engage lower-value or lower-altitude targets such as cheap UAS, saving expensive missile interceptors for the more challenging targets."

• Hackers are using the Gemini chatbot in their operations, per a report from Google.
• It said that hackers from Iran, China, and North Korea are using Gemini to boost productivity.
• But hackers hadn't achieved any major breakthroughs using the tech, the report said.

Businesses are using AI to improve their productivity — and it's no different for hackers from Iran, China, and North Korea, according to a report from Google.

The tech giant's Threat Intelligence Group said in a report on Wednesday that while hackers were using its Gemini chatbot to operate more efficiently, it wasn't yet a game changer for new capabilities.

"Threat actors are experimenting with Gemini to enable their operations, finding productivity gains but not yet developing novel capabilities," it said.

"Rather than enabling disruptive change, generative AI allows threat actors to move faster and at higher volume."

Google said that state-backed hackers were using the tool for tasks including generating code, researching targets, or identifying network vulnerabilities. Promoters of disinformation, it said, were using Gemini for developing fake personas, translation, and messaging.

The company's cybersecurity unit added that rapid advances in large language models, or LLMs, meant that hackers were constantly devising new ways to use the tools.

"Current LLMs on their own are unlikely to enable breakthrough capabilities for threat actors. We note that the AI landscape is in constant flux, with new AI models and agentic systems emerging daily," the report said.

The report said Iranian hackers were the biggest users of Gemini, employing it to craft phishing campaigns or conduct "reconnaissance on defense experts and organizations."

Chinese hackers were mainly focused on using the technology to troubleshoot code and obtain "deeper access to target networks," Google's report said.

Meanwhile, North Korean actors have used the technology to craft fake cover letters and research jobs as part of a plan to secretly place agents into remote IT jobs in Western companies.

US officials last year said that North Korea is placing people in remote positions in US firms using false or stolen identities as part of a mass extortion scheme.

Google said Gemini's safeguards prevented hackers from using it for more sophisticated attacks, such as accessing information to manipulate Google's own products.

Analysts have long warned that generative AI, which produces text or media in response to user requests, has the capacity to make hacking and disinformation operations more effective.

A report by the UK's National Cyber Security Center last week echoed Google's conclusions on the impact of the tech on cybercrime. It said that while AI would "increase the volume and heighten the impact" of cyber attacks, the overall impact would be "uneven."

• President Donald Trump is threatening to impose tariffs of up to 100% on chips made in Taiwan.
• That could be bad news for Nvidia, which relies on Taiwan's TSMC for its chip supply.
• Nvidia's value declined by 17% on Monday in a market rout triggered by China's DeepSeek.

President Donald Trump's pledge to impose tariffs on semiconductors made in Taiwan could deal a fresh blow to Nvidia, whose shares dropped by 17% on Monday in a DeepSeek-induced sell-off.

Tech firms like Nvidia have long relied on Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest contract semiconductor manufacturer, to make the specialist AI chips they design in the US.

That relationship was threatened on Monday as the president delivered a speech to Republicans in which he said tariffs on Taiwan would be aimed at returning the production of chips to the US.

"They left us and went to Taiwan," Trump said, seeming to refer to US firms that source processors from TSMC.

Trump said companies wouldn't want to pay a "25%, 50%, or even a 100% tax."

US tariffs on Taiwan's semiconductors could result in a steep increase in costs to Nvidia and other significant customers, such as Apple and AMD. Chip manufacturing efforts in the US are less developed and more expensive than those in Taiwan.

The threat of tariffs risks a double blow for Nvidia, one of TSMC's largest customers. On Monday, after the Chinese startup DeepSeek released an AI model, Nvidia lost about $589 billion in market value.

Investors reacted with panic, fearing that Nvidia's chips may face a decline in demand. DeepSeek's new model claims to have achieved performance levels similar to a frontier model created by OpenAI but with fewer and less-advanced chips.

An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment.

It's unclear whether Trump will proceed with tariffs on Taiwan, but US leaders have increasingly exercised caution about dependence on Taiwan for chips.

China has long overshadowed the independently governed island with the prospect of invasion. A war could hugely disrupt the US economy, endangering the supply of the chips vital to swaths of the US tech sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic also exposed the vulnerability of global supply chains.

President Joe Biden, as part of his CHIPS Act, sought to encourage more semiconductor firms to set up business in the US by offering incentives such as tax breaks. TSMC has moved some of its operations to the US, opening chip manufacturing plants in Arizona as part of a $65 billion initiative.

While Trump has veered toward imposing tariffs to bolster US chip production, the US's chip manufacturing sector could take years to develop the same capacity as Taiwan's. That could mean higher prices for hardware that relies on chips from Taiwan, such as Apple's iPhones, Nvidia's GPUs, and AMD's processors.

"If the argument is that this is the way to force it to move here, TSMC is already moving here," William Reinsch, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Yahoo Finance last year after Trump floated the idea of imposing tariffs.

"They're already building a fab plant in Arizona," he added. "That's all already underway and the tariffs aren't going to make that move any faster. If anything, they might complicate the effort."

Taiwan responded to Trump's tariff proposal by pointing to the relationship between the Taiwanese and US economies.

In a statement reported by Reuters on Tuesday, Taiwan's economy ministry said: "Taiwan and the U.S. semiconductor and other technology industries are highly complementary to each other, especially the U.S.-designed, Taiwan-foundry model, which creates a win-win business model for Taiwan and U.S. industries."

AI is among the sectors where the US and China are in an intensifying battle for global technological dominance. On January 21, Trump announced, alongside the leaders of OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, a $500 billion initiative to boost AI infrastructure in the US.

TSMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• US intelligence agencies and the military are developing AI programs.
• But they need specialized, secure systems to rein in sometimes-chaotic AI models.
• Microsoft has created an AI system cut off from the internet for US intelligence.

The US military and intelligence services are eager to harness the potential of AI, and firms are developing new technology to enable them.

While many industries can experiment with AI freely and use public tools, the high stakes and sensitivity of intelligence work and warfare represent a big barrier.

For companies that can keep the data safe enough and defend against the well-documented mistakes and hallucinations of AI models, a significant new market awaits. Its tasks are as varied as sorting through reams of National Security Agency intercepts for terror threats to guiding battlefield decisions in real time.

Firms like Microsoft have built walled-off AI products for the intelligence community, and Palantir has also staked out its ambitions. Similar efforts years ago created an uproar inside Google.

An emerging business

This month, a senior Pentagon official focused on AI, Radha Plumb, pointed to the small amount of classified computing power as a hurdle as the Pentagon prepares to carry out new tests, Defense One reported; Plumb has since stepped down.

As demand from defense and intel agencies grows, so should the business opportunity.

Officials hope that AI can supercharge tasks from analyzing swaths of secret data to battlefield targeting, an approach Israel's Defense Force used in its withering aerial war on Hamas-led Gaza.

"The US is planning to integrate AI into a wide range of national security-related tasks," said Ian Reynolds, a postdoctoral fellow for the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said the Pentagon had around 800 AI-related projects in the works, and was rolling out uses of the technology identified in a 2023 testing program called Project Lima.

"There are some indications that the technology is operational in some circumstances even today," said Reynolds.

Defense One reported that the US military was trying to figure out how AI could help its leaders make decisions faster in a potential conflict with China with tests in the Pacific region.

"The idea is to quicken the decision-making process and achieve what the DoD is calling 'decision advantage', or the capacity to make faster, better decisions," Reynolds said.

Among the Pentagon's chief aims is to improve the flow of information within different parts of the military.

Not just the US, but nations including China and Gulf states are racing to dominate the new technology and experimenting with how it can be used by spies and the military.

Reynolds said that one of the core functions would be to analyze troves of classified data.

"I think the goal here is to get at the most critical data, information, or broader patterns across data, at a quicker rate than an analyst," he said.

Power and danger

The dangers, though, are many and severe — classified data could accidentally drift into non-classified uses for an AI. It could leak or be stolen.

AI models could also display bias in ways that are difficult for humans to pick up on or could misunderstand nuances in communications reports, distorting the decision-making process.

"We are not fully sure of the degree to which human decision-makers may be nudged toward certain decision pathways by AI-enabled decision support systems," Reynolds said.

And the secrecy of the programs being rolled out is another concern for critics.

Amos Toh, a senior counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told Business Insider that "the little we know about military uses of commercial AI indicates a real risk of exposing classified information to adversaries."

"Using AI in intelligence analysis may also sweep up vast amounts of personal and sensitive data while amplifying discriminatory predictions about who poses a national security threat," he added.

Microsoft in December said it had created a solution: a walled-off AI that could handle classified data safely.

It said it was the world's first time a major AI model had operated wholly severed from the internet — signaling the start of a new kind of spy-friendly AI.

• NATO is using sea drones to help defend subsea cables.
• European officials have accused Russia of sabotaging the cables.
• The cables carry power and internet data.

NATO is deploying sea drones to help monitor and defend subsea cables in the Baltic amid the escalating threat of Russian sabotage.

Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of the alliance, mentioned the new tech at a recent panel.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, Rutte said NATO had launched a mission in the Baltic Sea "to fight off the Russians who are getting at our critical undersea infrastructure."

"We are using sea drone technology there, next to the more traditional technology with ships, etc and aircraft," he said.

His remarks follow NATO's announcement on January 14 of its Baltic Sentry mission, using ships, aircraft, submarine satellites, and naval drones to surveil and defend the cables.

Running for thousands of miles under the sea, the cables transmit energy and data crucial for a global internet. But they're difficult to monitor and protect and are vulnerable to attack.

Drones are uncrewed vessels that can be deployed for a range of functions, including surveillance. The use of sea drones is still relatively new.

French Adm. Pierre Vandier, a senior NATO commander, told The War Zone that Baltic Sentry was the first time using drones in that way.

He also clarified that the drones were surface drones, rather than undersea ones.

The mission would "give a persistent, 24-7 surveillance of critical areas," he told the outlet.

In recent months, European officials have blamed Russia for a series of mysterious cable severances around the Baltic.

Analysts told Business Insider that Russia appears to be using aging tankers to sever the cables by dragging their anchors, giving the appearance of plausible deniability. In December, Finnish officials detained a tanker it accused of severing a cable near Estonia and said the vessel was part of a "shadow fleet" Russia uses to dodge sanctions.

Russia has denied any involvement in cable sabotage.

• NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance makes new weapons too slowly.
• He said Western militaries had focused too much on very high standards that hampered progress.
• "Speed is of the essence, not perfection," Rutte told an event at Davos.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance needs to urgently speed up its development of new weapons.

"We are too slow in innovating," Rutte said at an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.

"One of the problems here we have is that the better is the enemy of good: It has to be perfect," Rutte said of the current paradigm.

"But it doesn't have to be perfect."

He pointed to the war production of Ukraine, driven by necessity, as a better model.

Ukraine, he said, will proceed with equipment that is a "six to seven," out of 10 while NATO militaries insist on reaching "nine or 10."

"Speed is of the essence, not perfection," he said, calling on the alliance to focus on "getting speed and enough quality done in the right conjunction."

Ukraine's high-end weaponry from the US and others has been a crucial part of its arsenal.

But only a minority of its troops get that technology. Much of the fighting involves using vast quantities of lower-tech equipment, including decades-old tanks and artillery pieces deployed by both Ukraine and Russia.

Russia now reportedly outpaces Ukraine's NATO allies in its production of key military equipment including shells, having geared its economy towards military production.

Ukraine has also produced large amounts of relatively unsophisticated gear, including adapting commercially available tech for use in war at a tiny fraction of the cost of military versions.

Rutte said at the panel that in Ukraine it isn't unusual for a $400 drone to take out an enemy vehicle that cost millions.

NATO is under pressure from President Donald Trump to boost its spending, and for its non-US members to take a larger role in European defense.

Members have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defense, a threshold many do not meet.

Trump wants members to boost spending to as high as 5%, having accused allies of freeloading off the US in the past.

The US spends around 3.5% of GDP on defense.

Rutte, at the event, said he supported Trump's call for members to invest more in defense and said they needed to focus on innovation — or face even higher defense bills in the future.

"We have to get it into a balance with what the US is spending," Rutte said.

• Sweden uses nighttime satellite photos to gauge Russia's economic health, its economic minister said.
• Elisabeth Svantesson said the inflation figures from Russia's central bank were an understatement.
• Images of Moscow before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine are noticeably brighter, she said.

The declining health of Russia's economy is as clear as day — or night, a finance minister said Wednesday.

Elisabeth Svantesson, the finance minister of Sweden, said she and her officials were skeptical of how Russia's official figures were describing its economy.

One measure they use instead, she said on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, is comparing photos of Moscow by night.

The lighting there, she said, was darker in 2023 than in 2021, indicating a capital and a nation in trouble.

Business Insider found some public photos showing the Moscow skyline in the years Svantesson mentioned. Here is one from March 2021:

And another from November 2023:

It's hard to make a precise comparison — the time of day and cloud cover are different.

But in the 2023 image, the pools of light showing Moscow's suburbs appear smaller and less frequent than in the preinvasion image.

"It's very clear that the Russian economy is definitely not as strong as Putin wants us to believe," Svantesson said.

She said that Moscow's inflation was "much higher than the public figure says." Russia's most recent figure puts it at 9.5%, which Svantesson said was out of kilter with its main interest rate of 21%.

She also said levels of capital leaving Russia suggested a struggling economy, as did the space photos of Moscow.

"There is over Moscow, for example, a much darker picture," she said.

"They're not using as much electricity," said the panel moderator, Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy.

"No, no, no. It's much darker," Svantesson said.

Western countries imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in the wake of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, mostly designed to cut off the oil and gas exports crucial to its economy.

The Kremlin says it has withstood the worst potential effects of the sanctions. Svantesson said that vision of a strong economy was a tactic to convince Ukraine and its allies that sanctions don't work.

She concluded that "we don't know" the true state of Russia's economy, "but what we know is that his narrative and his truth is not true."

• A peace deal will likely be brokered in Ukraine this year, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said.
• President Donald Trump has pledged to negotiate a Ukraine deal.
• Although his timescale has slipped, both Ukraine and Russia have indicated willing.

Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said she believes there'll be a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine this year.

"I'm pretty sure there will be a peace agreement this year," said Valtonen, speaking at an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday.

"I was in Kyiv just a week before, before last, and I must say that nobody wants and deserves peace more than Ukraine, and of course, the Ukrainian children," she said.

Valtonen went on to blame Russia for the conflict, which will be three years old in February.

President Donald Trump, who was sworn in for his second term Monday, has pledged to rapidly negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.

On the campaign trail, he pledged to end the war on his first day in office, though his aides later said it would take longer.

It's unclear, too, what form a peace deal might take. Trump's proposed Ukraine envoy, retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, suggested that it could involve Ukraine handing over land to Russia and pledging to remain neutral.

Ukraine has previously said it would only accept a peace deal that involved Russia withdrawing its forces but has recently said it's open to negotiations.

Russia has also signalled willingness to negotiate, but continues to push for sweeping concessions from Kyiv.

Valtonen said that in the past, a neutrality pledge had not protected Ukraine or other countries in Russia's orbit.

"And there, I think we have a global obligation to defend people," she said.

Like Ukraine, Finland shares a land border with Russia. It had long pursued a policy of neutrality but pivoted after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 and joined the NATO defensive alliance.

• China's vice president met VP-elect JD Vance on Sunday — and Elon Musk came too.
• The meetings came ahead of Han Zheng's planned attendance at Donald Trump's inauguration.
• Beijing could see Musk, who makes Teslas in China, as a useful go-between.

On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, China's envoy to the event, Han Zheng, met with JD Vance just before he takes the vice presidency.

With Xi Jinping not attending, it's the highest-level contact between Beijing and the new US administration.

On the same day, Han had a separate meeting with Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump who also has a strong link with China thanks to his business interests there.

Musk and Han discussed issues including trade and investment, according to Chinese state media outlet Xinhua.

"Musk said that Tesla is willing to deepen investment and cooperation in China and play an active role in promoting US-China economic and trade exchanges," Xinhua said.

Musk got special attention from Han, with a meeting separate from one with other US business leaders.

Beijing sees him as a more sympathetic figure than some of the China hawks in Trump's inner circle, according to analysts.

Kyle Chan, a postdoctoral researcher in Chinese industrial policy at Princeton University, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in December that Musk was "uniquely positioned" to mediate between China and Trump.

Ali Wyne, Senior Research and Advocacy Adviser at the Crisis Group in Washington, DC, told Business Insider that Musk is an "unusually compelling interlocutor" for Chinese officials wary of Trump.

"Beyond being the world's wealthiest individual and the owner of one of its most powerful social media platforms, X, he belongs to President Trump's inner circle and has a vested interest in expanding Tesla's operations in China," he said.

The President-elect has threatened to impose new tariffs on China when he takes power, doubling down on the confrontational policies he pursued in his first term.

Key members of his cabinet, including Vance, believe that the US needs to more aggressively check China's growing power.

Han "discussed a range of topics including fentanyl, balancing trade and regional stability" with Vance, according to the Trump transition team, as cited by The Associated Press.

Musk has extensive business ties in China, notably Tesla's gigafactory near Shanghai.

Musk worked with Li Qiang, the former party secretary for Shanghai and the current Chinese premier, when he first sought to build a Tesla plant in China.

He frequently visits the country and has met Xi several times.

In a post on X on Sunday, Musk said he opposed the ban on TikTok, the Chinese-owned app that lawmakers last year voted to block access to in the US on national security grounds.

The ban came into effect Sunday, but the app restored its services after Trump said he'd delay the ban.

"That said, the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced," he wrote. "Something needs to change."

While Trump said he could escalate sanctions on China, the president-elect struck a different tone after a conversation by phone with Xi on Friday, saying the pair discussed fentanyl, the ban on TikTok, and trade.

Trump, in a break with historic precedent, invited Xi to his inauguration, a move some analysts interpreted as a power play.

While Xi declined, his decision to send Han, a top-ranking official, may show that Xi is willing to work with Trump to head off a potential trade war.

• The Biden administration will leave it to Trump to enforce the TikTok ban.
• Congress ruled last year that Chinese firm ByteDance should sell TikTok or see it banned.
• Trump takes office on January 20, the day after the deadline for ByteDance to sell.

President Joe Biden's administration is not planning to implement the TikTok ban set to take effect on Sunday.

That would leave it to President-elect Donald Trump and his officials to act after they take office on January 20.

The law, which was passed by Congress and signed by Biden in April of last year, requires TikTok to be banned unless ByteDance, its China-based parent company, sells the app's US operations by January 19.

"Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

"President Biden's position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President's desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law," she added.

The bill that would ban TikTok from US app stores also gave Biden the ability to grant ByteDance a 90-day extension if several conditions were met, including if there was "evidence of significant progress" made toward selling TikTok's US operations.

Trump has defended the app, which was banned amid concerns user data could be accessed by the Chinese government.

Mike Waltz, Trump's incoming national security advisor, told Fox News on Wednesday that Trump would seek to preserve the app, used by around 170 million Americans.

"We're going to find a way to preserve it but protect people's data. And that's the deal that will be in front of us," Waltz said.

He suggested an executive order could be used to protect it, but offered few details on how this might work in practice.

Last month, Trump called on the US Supreme Court to pause the ban. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on Friday.

Following the ruling, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a video to TikTok thanking Trump for his commitment to working with TikTok to keep the app running in the US. 

There have been several potential TikTok buyers, but it's unclear if or to what extent ByteDance has sought to divest. ByteDance and TikTok have not publicly shown any interest in a sale.

Democratic former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday that more time was needed to find a US buyer.

"It's clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers," Schumer said.

It's also unclear what will happen to the app on Sunday if Biden, Trump, or the Supreme Court do not step in before then to save it.

The legislation passed last year requires platforms in the US such as Apple or Google to stop offering the app or updating it when the sale deadline passes, meaning it'd effectively "go dark" or be unavailable.

• Ukraine launched waves of drone and missile strikes deep in Russia.
• It comes a week before President-elect Trump is to be sworn in.
• Both Ukraine and Russia have intensified attacks ahead of Trump's second term.

Ukraine struck targets deep inside Russia using missiles and drones in one of its biggest recent attacks as Donald Trump prepares to start his second presidential term next week.

The strikes were carried out on January 13 and 14 on industrial and military targets up to 680 miles into Russia in Bryansk, Saratov, and Tula oblasts and the Republic of Tatarstan, Ukrainian officials said.

Among the targets struck were an oil refinery near Engels, Saratov Oblast, which provides fuel for the strategic bombers, and a chemical plant in Bryansk that provides material for missile systems, the officials said.

Russia's defense ministry claimed to identify the missiles used, saying they were among the most advanced sent to Ukraine: the British/French Storm Shadow missiles and US ATACMS.

It said 146 drones were also involved in the attack.

On Monday, Russia launched with drone and missile strikes at energy infrastructure targets across Ukraine.

Both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries said they intercepted most of the missiles, a claim that was not possible to verify.

The Ukrainian amount to a show of strength just before President-elect Donald Trump begins his second term on Monday.

Trump has harshly criticized Ukraine's strikes on Russia, and President Joe Biden for allowing the involvement of US weapons.

In a December interview with Time magazine, he said: "It's crazy what's taking place. It's crazy. I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We're just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done."

Trump officials have suggsted that Ukraine could be forced to cede some territory now occupied by Russia in a peace deal.

Analyzing the moves, the former UK foreign minister William Hague told Times Radio Tuesday that both sides were seeking to "position themselves" for a new Trump administration.

"The Russians have been trying to grab more territory. The Ukrainians have been striking back harder in order to get them settled positions," said Hague.

In the run-up to Trump's inauguration, fighting has intensified between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine has attacked sites in Russia using missiles and drones, Russia has made important advances on the front line in east Ukraine.

It's also intensified its bid to oust Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine still holds territory.

• Russia is accused of using aging tankers to damage undersea cables.
• Analysts say it gives the cover of plausible deniability.
• But it's a method that also comes with risks.

A series of apparent attacks on undersea internet cables show Russia exploiting a Western vulnerability, analysts say.

The incidents in recent months involve aging tankers dragging their anchors and severing undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, prompting outages.

The latest came on Christmas Day, when the tanker Eagle S dragged its anchor for hundreds of miles, damaged the Estlink 2 power line between Finland and Estonia and telecommunications cables.

Officials in Europe say Russia is deliberately using the vessels to target the crucial infrastructure used to transmit internet data and power.

They say the incidents add up to a campaign by Russia to sabotage infrastructure. At least one vessel is said to belong to a "shadow fleet" of ships not directly tied to Russia that it uses to evade oil sanctions.

The means employed, the officials say, are decidedly low-tech: aging tankers dragging their anchors along the seabed for miles, hoping to snag and damage a cable.

One Finnish official on Monday said that Eagle S and its crew were preparing to target more cables before the ship was boarded.

The Baltic and beyond

In November, a Chinese-flagged vessel, the Yi Peng 3, was accused of damaging another cable in the Baltic.

Another Chinese-flagged vessel, the NewnewPolar Bear, damaged subsea communications and gas cables in the Baltic in October 2023 by dragging its anchor. China admitted the vessel was responsible for the damage but said it was an accident, The South China Morning Post reported.

And on January 6, Taiwanese officials said that a Chinese-owned tanker severed cables near its north coast in a parallel incident it blamed on China.

Analysts classify the incidents as likely examples of "grey zone" tactics used by Russia and China to destabilize their rivals while falling short of acts of war.

"Attacks on CUI have become a viable weapon in grey zone warfare," said James Foggo, a retired US Navy admiral, using an abbreviation for Critical Undersea Infrastructure.

"More must be done to preserve CUI in the Baltic and other susceptible regions of the globe," he said in an interview with Business Insider.

Plausible deniability

Using commercial vessels for sabotage comes with risks, but also significant benefits for the attacker.

Henri van Soest, a senior analyst at RAND Europe, told BI that "Russia gets a number of advantages from using its shadow fleet for this purpose. The most important one is deniability and ambiguity: We currently have little insight into the make-up of the shadow fleet."

The ultimate ownership of a vessel can be difficult to establish.

The Eagle S, for instance, is owned by a company registered in the UAE, managed by a firm in Mumbai, and sails under the flag of the Cook Islands.

Analysts assert that Russia is directing the vessel, but there is no verifiable public link.

The Kremlin has itself denied any connection with the Eagle S, and other similar incidents in the Baltic.

The lack of an explicit tie to Russia also allows the ships to navigate freely, drawing less attention from national coast guards than a Russian ship.

A thousand threats, or more

Van Soest also pointed to the size of the fleet — which analysts say could exceed 1,400 vessels. It makes any single ship hard to monitor or counter.

"While currently only a small number of ships are suspected of engaging in sabotage activities, these actions make the entire shadow fleet suspect," said Van Soest.

He said there was a psychological component to the strategy in addition to the actual damage it can cause.

"Any ship that forms part of the shadow fleet could potentially be on a sabotage mission. It also sends the implicit message that Russia could swiftly order a larger number of shadow fleet vessels to start sabotage actions, leading to far greater damage and disruption," he said.

Clumsy strategy

The sabotage playbook comes with risks for Russia.

Pushing too hard with the fleet, Kaushal said, could prompt Western navies to treat it as a hostile entity and try to restrict its movements, reducing its value as a way of overcoming sanctions.

It's also clumsy, said Erin Murphy, deputy director of Chair on India and Emerging Asia Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.: "Anchors can bounce on the ocean floor and miss cutting the cable entirely, if that was the intent of a ship."

For all that, there is not much Western countries can do that matches the potential scale of the problem.

Limited counterplays

Sweden has said it'll be contributing 3 naval ships to boost NATO patrols in the Baltic to defend against subsea cable sabotage.

And late last year the alliance also deployed divers to test equipment to better defend the cables.

Two further measures proposed by European officials have been to tighten sanctions on vessels in the shadow fleet and boost naval patrols to deter sabotage.

"Increased patrols could help, but there's still the problem in terms of the size of the ocean and waterways," said Murphy.

In short: the sea is just too big to defend.

And Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, was skeptical that sanctions would deter the shadow fleet in practice.

Kaushal said that several vessels connected to recent cable-cuttings, including the Yi Peng 3, were not considered to be part of the shadow fleet.

Murphy, the author of a 2024 report on the threat to subsea cables, said nations could pressure the destination ports of suspected shadow fleet vessels to search them or deny them entry.

"This could work for a short time but countries and actors usually find ways to circumvent," she said.

It leaves Western nations with few options beyond chasing shadows.