Damage to Baltic Sea telecoms cable may have occurred in January

The Baltic Sea region has been on high alert due to a series of power cable, telecom, and gas pipeline outages since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Recent reports of damage to Finland’s C-Lion1 telecoms cable in the Baltic Sea have raised concerns of possible sabotage. This article delves into the details of the incident and the investigations surrounding it.

Investigations into Suspected Sabotage:

Finland’s telecoms operator, Cinia, revealed that the damage to the C-Lion1 cable may have occurred as early as Jan. 26, the same day a cargo ship broke another undersea cable in the area. Authorities in Sweden and Finland have initiated investigations into the suspected case of sabotage along the seabed from Finland to Germany. The exact timing of the damage remains unclear, but Cinia believes it took place at 2:37 a.m. Finnish time on Jan. 26, coinciding closely with an outage of a nearby subsea fiber-optic cable linking Sweden and Latvia.

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Accidental Damage vs. Sabotage:

A Swedish prosecutor stated that a Maltese-flagged bulk carrier, the Vezhen, had accidentally ruptured the cable linking Sweden and Latvia with its anchor on the same day. However, the prosecutor ruled out sabotage, attributing the incident to an accident. MarineTraffic data indicated that the Vezhen passed the Sweden-Latvia cable at 00:45 GMT on Jan. 26. Despite these findings, suspicions of sabotage linger in the region.

Ongoing Investigations and Responses:

Swedish police are currently looking into the matter but have not provided any comments as of Monday. The Bulgarian shipping company, Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which owns the Vezhen vessel, has also remained silent on the issue. As tensions in the Baltic Sea region continue to rise, the NATO alliance has increased its presence to safeguard critical infrastructure.