Is this a coincidence? This November 18, while Finland kicked off Dynamic Front 25, which is undoubtedly the largest artillery exercise ever organized by NATO, C-Lion1, the only submarine fiber cable optics connecting the country to Central Europe via Germany, was damaged by an “external force”, according to the Finnish public operator Cinia.
“A fault was detected on the C-Lion1 submarine cable, between Finland and Germany, on November 18, 2024. Due to this fault, the services provided by the C-Lion1 cable are interrupted,” effect announced by Cinia, via a press release.
During a press conference, the Finnish operator explained that this 1,200 km cable had been cut approximately halfway along its length, in the exclusive economic zone [ZEE] of Sweden, in a “sector far from maritime traffic”. The hypothesis of seismic activity and that of a landslide having been ruled out, the rupture of C-Lion1 could therefore not have been caused by an “external force”, explained Ari-Jussi Knaapila, the CEO of Cinia.
However, there is currently no specific evidence indicating that this is sabotage. However, “voluntary cutting of the submarine cable is currently not a ruled out option,” said Henri Kronlund, the company's public relations director.
The exact nature of the damage suffered by this cable will only be known when the ship requested to repair it arrives on site.
Hence the caution of SuPo, the Finnish intelligence service. “It is too early to determine the cause of the rupture” of C-Lion1, said a spokesperson, before recalling that “200 submarine cable ruptures occur each year around the world”. And added that “the most common cause is linked to human activities, such as fishing”.
This submarine cable is made up of eight pairs of optical fibers for a transmission capacity of 144 terabits per second. When it was put into service in 2016, there was talk of connecting it to the network of the Russian operator Avelacom.
In any case, if the Finnish authorities are cautious about the causes of the break in this cable, others do not hesitate to suspect Russia. This is “probably the result of an intentional act.” When a cable breaks, you wonder why it happened [et] who could have a motive to do something like that,” Tapio Frantti, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Jyväskylä, told public broadcaster Yle.
In any case, this is not the first incident of this type to concern Finland. In October 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline was damaged, undoubtedly intentionally, by the anchor of the Chinese container ship Newnew Polar Bear. The pipe has since been restored, after work costing 35 million euros.
Photo : Dirk1981 – CC-BY-SA-2.0
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