Two telecommunications cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea in forty-eight hours between Finland and Germany on the one hand, and Sweden and Lithuania on the other, reviving suspicions of sabotage as part of a “hybrid war “, particularly with regard to Russia.
Sweden announced the opening of an investigation for “sabotage”, with the support of Germany, concerning the two damaged cables.
The “C-Lion1”, a 1,172 kilometer submarine cable linking Helsinki to Rostock, a Baltic Sea port in northeastern Germany, was broken on Monday, according to its operator, the Finnish technology group Cinia.
This rupture, located south of the island of Öland in Swedish waters, some 700 km from Helsinki, led to the cutting of all the fiber connections of this cable.
“This type of rupture does not occur in these waters without external impact,” added the public group.
Finnish police have also opened an investigation.
Sweden and Lithuania, after Finland and Germany the day before, said they were “deeply concerned” by the break in the cable connecting their two countries.
“Sanctions”
“Situations of this type must be assessed taking into account the growing threat posed by Russia in our neighborhood,” the defense ministers of the two countries said, citing “an increasing number of hybrid activities in Europe”.
Once the investigations have been completed, the EU and member states “must make the best use of their new sanctions regime against this type of sabotage of critical infrastructure”, argued Lithuanian Laurynas Kasčiūnas.
On Sunday morning, another telecommunications cable, the “Arelion”, linking the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania, had also been damaged, Audrius Stasiulaitis, spokesperson for the Lithuanian subsidiary of the Swedish operator Telia, explained on Tuesday. Internet traffic was rerouted via other international links.
“We can confirm that the interruption of internet traffic was not caused by an equipment fault but by material damage to the fiber optic cable,” he detailed, specifying that customers were not not affected.
“Ship Movements”
According to Swedish Minister of Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin, quoted by the TV4 channel, “the Swedish armed forces and the coast guard, thanks to their knowledge of the maritime situation, detected ship movements corresponding in time and in space to the interruptions that occurred”.
A Chinese ship, the Yi Peng 3, left the Baltic Sea early Tuesday morning, followed by the Danish navy, and is said to be on the radar of “several countries”, Finnish and Swedish media said.
As of Monday evening, the foreign ministers of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, and of Finland, Elina Valtonen, spoke of the threat of “malicious” actors like Russia.
“Our European security is not only threatened by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine but also by hybrid wars waged by malicious actors,” they said.
European countries are increasingly using the term “hybrid war” to describe actions aimed at harming them, according to them, carried out by Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Tense area
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius estimated early Tuesday that “sabotage” was certainly to blame for the damage. “No one believes these cables were cut by accident,” he said.
“I do not believe in the versions of (boat) anchors which would have accidentally caused damage to these cables,” added the German Defense Minister.
In October 2023, an underwater gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged, as the investigation later showed, by the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship which had continued on its route.
These incidents also recall the sabotage in September 2022 of the Nord Stream 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” by kyiv.
Tensions in the Baltic Sea have increased since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Moscow sees the increase in NATO's presence near its borders as a provocation and a threat to its security.
With the accession of Sweden, after that of Finland, all the states bordering the Baltic Sea, with the exception of Russia, are now members of the Atlantic Alliance.
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