Russia, accused of being behind the rupture of two submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, considers the charge “absurd”

The Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen – quoted by the Danish press agency Ritzau – declared on Wednesday November 20 that she would not be surprised if the breaking of two data cables in the Baltic Sea turned out to be intentional. The day before, six European countries including France accused Russia of carrying out hybrid attacks “unprecedented in their variety and scale” against NATO and EU countries allied with Ukraine.

“This is laughable given the lack of response to Ukraine’s sabotage activities in the Baltic Sea”replied the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, on Wednesday, referring to the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 for which Moscow accused kyiv.

In forty-eight hours, Sunday and Monday, two telecommunications cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea. On Monday, the C-Lion 1, a 1,172-kilometer submarine cable linking Helsinki, Finland, to Rostock, a Baltic Sea port in northeastern Germany, was severed, according to its operator, the technology group Finnish Cinia. This rupture, located south of the island of Öland in Swedish waters, some 700 kilometers from Helsinki, led to the cutting of all fiber connections of this cable.

On Sunday morning, the BCS, another telecommunications cable, linking the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania, was damaged, according to Audrius Stasiulaitis, spokesperson for the Lithuanian subsidiary of the Swedish operator Telia. Internet traffic was rerouted through other international links.

On Tuesday, Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, said that “no one believes these cables were cut by accident. I don’t believe in anchor versions [de bateaux] which would have accidentally caused damage to these cables”he added.

Swedish police and prosecutors have announced the opening of an investigation into « sabotage ». “The preliminary investigation is ongoing and is only in its early stages”declared the prosecutor in charge of this case, Henrik Söderman, quoted in a press release.

According to Carl-Oskar Bohlin, the Swedish civil defense minister, quoted by the TV4 channel, “the Swedish Armed Forces and Coast Guard, through their maritime situational awareness, detected vessel movements corresponding in time and space to the interruptions that occurred”.

The movements of “Yi-Peng 3” in question

A Chinese ship, the Yi-Peng 3which left the Baltic Sea early Tuesday morning, followed by the Danish navy, after passing through the Russian port of Ust-Luga, 110 kilometers west of Saint Petersburg, could also have played a role in the two incidents. According to Finnish Public Broadcasting, on Sunday, hours before the cables were damaged, the navigation beacon transmitters of at least four ships in the area had been periodically switched off. The beacon signal Yi-Peng 3 disappeared throughout Sunday evening until around 1 a.m. Monday, while sailing near the cable.

Swedish television channel SVT points out that after the incidents in the Baltic Sea, the Chinese ship is being monitored by warships from NATO countries, including the Danish Navy, and is currently stationary off the coast of the Denmark.

Tensions in the Baltic Sea have increased since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In October 2023, an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged, as the investigation later showed, by the anchor of a Chinese freighter which had continued its journey.

These incidents also recall the sabotage in September 2022 of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which has not yet been clarified. In August, the Wall Street Journal implicated the former Ukrainian chief of staff, an accusation described as “absolute nonsense” at Kiev.