The Danish navy is interested on Wednesday in a Chinese boat, the Yi Peng 3, immobilized near the coast of Denmark, after the rupture of two telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea, the leaders of the Nordic countries not excluding the hypothesis of sabotage.
The bulk carrier, built in 2001 and owned by the Chinese company Ningbo Yipeng Shipping Co, was close to the area where the “C-Lion1” cable linking Finland to Germany was damaged on Monday, shows the specialist website Marinetraffic.
The cable break was located south of the island of Öland in Swedish waters, some 700 km from Helsinki.
Danish Defense announced on Wednesday that it was monitoring the Chinese boat, which has been stationary since Tuesday evening in Kattegat, between Denmark and the west coast of Sweden, according to Marinetraffic.
“We are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” Danish Defense said in a message to AFP.
The Chinese ship is currently between 10 and 12 miles from the Danish coast, according to AFP calculations. Up to 12 miles from the shore, any vessel can be questioned by the national navy of the country concerned.
The Yi Peng 3 left the Russian port of Ust Luga, west of St. Petersburg, on November 15, according to the online site VesselFinder. There is no evidence to incriminate him at the moment.
Swedish police, who have been investigating suspicions of sabotage since Tuesday, confirmed that they were interested in the movements of a boat, without specifying which one.
“Swedish police and prosecutors are interested in a vessel that was seen at the sites in question. It is not currently in Swedish waters,” she wrote in a statement.
Questioned by AFP in Copenhagen, Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said “he cannot speculate, for the moment, on the involvement of particular ships”.
For its part, Chinese diplomacy has rejected any suspicion.
“China has always fully fulfilled its obligations as a flag state and requires Chinese ships to scrupulously comply with applicable laws and regulations,” said Lin Jian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson. .
“Paralyze society”
On Sunday morning, another telecommunications cable, the “Arelion”, linking the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania, was damaged. A situation described as “very serious” by Pal Jonson.
“Destroying telecommunications and other types of cables is an effective way to partially paralyze society,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson stressed on Wednesday, not ruling out the possibility of sabotage.
“But we don’t know anything about that yet,” he added.
These cable breaks have not had a major effect: internet traffic via the “Arelion” has been rerouted using other international connections and customers are not affected, said a spokesperson for the company. Lithuanian subsidiary of the Swedish operator Telia.
“You have to dismantle a lot of cables for this to be felt,” Mattias Fridström, director of Arelion, told the TT news agency.
The two operators nevertheless confirmed that the cables had been damaged by an external impact.
Due to tensions around the Baltic Sea, particularly with Russia, several leaders have raised the possibility of a “hybrid attack”.
“No one believes that these cables were cut by accident,” insisted German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday morning.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Prime Minister, agreed with this. “There is a risk of hybrid attacks, cyberattacks and attacks on critical infrastructure,” she told the Ritzau news agency.
The Kremlin, for its part, considered it “laughable” and “absurd” to accuse Russia.
Tensions
According to the NGO Robin des bois, the Yi Peng 3 has only visited Chinese (13), Russian (four), Turkish (two) ports and one Indian port for a year.
Tensions in the Baltic Sea have increased since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The two incidents occurring 48 hours apart are reminiscent of 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 chief of staff of the Ukrainian army, an accusation described as “absolute nonsense” by kyiv.
In October 2023, it was an underwater gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, the Balticconnector, which was damaged by the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship, as the Finnish investigation showed.
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