Protecting Critical Energy Infrastructure in the Baltic Sea: Energy Security Challenges After 2022

Energy security after 2022 increasingly depends on maintaining services despite offshore infrastructure disruption. This integrative review examines policy documents, technical studies and four Baltic disruption episodes involving three systems: Nord Stream, Balticconnector and EstLink 2. The observation window is September 2022–December 2025; the two EstLink 2 episodes are within-asset observations, not independent replications. Asset unavailability means loss of a component’s intended function; service interruption means a break in the specified energy service; service failure means the inability of the assessed system to maintain the required service despite available substitutes. The comparison separates reported evidence, interpretations and untested propositions. Operating baselines, substitute supply and confirmed restoration explain why physical damage need not produce system-level service failure. An episode-level matrix links documented disruptions to institutional concern and protective responses without assigning hostile intent to every event. Public records document disruption and recovery sequences and the protection of EstLink 1 after the damage to EstLink 2. They do not establish resulting insurance premiums, financing losses or transition delays. Governance instruments and monitoring capabilities have distinct scopes and evidential limits. The contribution is a two-path framework with differentiated documentary support, not a statistically validated causal model or a representative inventory of Baltic infrastructure failures.