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Possible sabotage? Two undersea cables in the Baltic sea have been severely damaged, triggering security concerns
Fingers of blame are pointing east, after two under cables located in northern Europe, the Baltic sea, were severely damaged.
Reuters reported that two undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, including one linking Finland and Germany, have been severed.
The damaged critical infrastructure comes during heightened geopolitical tensions over sabotage to critical infrastructure, amid Russia’s illegal invasion and war in Ukraine.
In September 2022 the Nord Stream gas pipelines designed to supply gas from Russia to Germany was mysteriously blown up in the Baltic sea and remains under investigation by German authorities.
Hybrid warfare?
The two severed undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea were owned by different companies.
A 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) cable that connected Helsinki in Finland to the German port of Rostock stopped working around 0200 GMT on Monday, according to Finnish cyber security and telecoms company Cinia.
“A fault has been detected in the Cinia Oy C-Lion1 submarine cable between Finland and Germany at 4:04 a.m. on Monday 18th November, 2024. Due to the fault, the services provided over the C-Lion1 are down,” Cinia stated.
“The cause of the cable fault is unknown, Cinia has submitted a request for investigation to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on 19 November 2024,” it added.
The damage to the Finland-Germany cable occurred near the southern tip of Sweden’s Oland Island and could require five to 15 days to repair, Cinia’s chief executive, Ari-Jussi Knaapila, was quoted as telling a news conference.
The second cable is said to be a 218-km (135-mile) internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s strategically important Gotland Island, which went out of service at about 0800 GMT on Sunday, according to Lithuania’s Telia Lietuva, part of Sweden’s Telia Company.
Deeply concerned
Reuters reported Finland and Germany as saying in a joint statement that they were “deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable” and were investigating “an incident (that) immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage.”
Europe’s security is threatened by Russia’s war against Ukraine and “hybrid warfare by malicious actors,” the joint statement reportedly said, without naming the actors.
“Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies,” Germany and Finland reportedly said.
A spokesperson for Telia Lietuva, Audrius Stasiulaitis, reportedly said the other cable was severed as well. It is owned and operated by Sweden’s Arelion to carry Telia Lietuva’s internet traffic, the Telia spokesperson said.
“It is absolutely central that it is clarified why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working,” Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Sweden’s minister of civil defence, reportedly told Swedish public broadcaster SVT.
Other incidents
With heightened attention on protecting critical infrastructure from hostile Russian actions, there has been close scrutiny of previous incidents of damage to undersea infrastructure.
In 2023 a subsea gas pipeline and several telecoms cables running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea were severely damaged.
Investigators of that 2023 cases in Finland and Estonia later identified a Chinese container ship that they believe dragged its anchor and caused the damage. But they have not said whether the damage was accidental or intentional.
In October 2022, soon after the Nord Stream gas pipelines had been blown up, British police declared a major incident after a BT subsea cable connecting the Shetland Isles to the UK mainland was damaged – severing telephone and internet communications. It was repaired shortly after.
A second cable (owned by Faroese Telecom) connecting Shetland to the Faroe Islands was also repaired a week later, after it was damaged by a fishing trawler.
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