Who is having fun cutting our submarine cables? In recent months, several of these telecommunications and power supply tools have been damaged in the Baltic Sea. This Sunday, the Swedish Prime Minister announced that at least one submarine cable connecting Sweden and Latvia had been damaged. “A ship suspected of having carried out the sabotage was seized by decision of the prosecutor,” the Swedish prosecutor’s office said in a press release.
“This cable belongs to a Latvian entity. I have been in close contact […] with Prime Minister Evika Silina throughout the day,” said Ulf Kristersson on X.
A ship heading to Russia
“Several authorities, including the national police operations unit, the coast guard and the armed forces, are participating in the investigation,” said the prosecutor in charge of the case Mats Ljungqvist, without giving further details. “Based on current findings, we presume that the cable has been significantly damaged by external factors,” LVRTC had said in a statement earlier in the day.
The damage took place in Swedish territorial waters at a depth of at least 50 meters. Riga immediately deployed a warship to the site of the damage, specifying that it had identified a “suspicious vessel”, the “Michalis San”, as well as two other vessels, in the area. The “Michalis San” was en route to Russia, according to maritime tracking sites. “We have a warship that patrols the Baltic Sea constantly, day and night, and which allowed us to deploy quickly as soon as we became aware of the damage,” said Latvian Navy Commander Maris Polencs , during a press conference.
-NATO surveillance
This new incident is part of a series of similar problems in the Baltic Sea. Russia is suspected of being behind this sabotage. In January, NATO announced a mission aimed at protecting this underwater infrastructure.
On December 25, the EstLink 2 power cable, connecting Finland and Estonia, and four other telecommunications cables were damaged, just weeks after similar damage to two telecommunications cables in Swedish waters.
