Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea cut, Germany and Finland fear sabotage

Two undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, including one linking Finland and Germany, were severed, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.

The episode recalled other incidents in the same waterway that authorities have investigated as potentially malicious including damage to a gas pipeline and undersea cables last year and the 2022 explosions of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

The 1,200-km (745-mile) cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock stopped working around 2am GMT on Monday, Finnish state-controlled cybersecurity and telecoms company Cinia said.

A 218-km (135-mile) internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island went out of service at about 8am GMT on Sunday, according to Lithuania’s Telia Lietuva, part of Sweden’s Telia Company group.

Finland and Germany said 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”.

The C-Lion1 submarine telecommunications cable being laid to the bottom of the Baltic Sea from the military base island Santahamina in Helsinki, Finland in 2015. Photo: Lehtikuva / AFP

Europe’s security is threatened by Russia’s war against Ukraine and “hybrid warfare by malicious actors”, the joint statement said, without naming the actors.

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Германия Военные Действия

Балтийское море саботаж подводный кабель оптический злой связь подозрение