Breakage of communications cable in the Baltic “by an external force” worries Germany and Finland

An underwater telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Germany via the Baltic Sea stopped working in the early hours of this Monday, probably due to “some external force,” according to Finnish state-controlled cybersecurity and telecommunications network company Sinia. After being struck off. This 1,172 kilometer long fiber optic cable, known as Sea-Lion1, has been connecting the Finnish capital Helsinki to the German port of Rostock since 2016.

The incident is being investigated, and although accidental causes have not been ruled out, it concerns the governments of both countries. The foreign ministers of Germany (Annalena Baerbock) and Finland (Elina Valtonen) issued a joint statement in which they declared themselves “deeply concerned” about the cable breakage. “Our European security is threatened not only by Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, but also by hybrid wars waged by malign actors,” the two ministers say. “Such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage.”

At a press conference in Helsinki, Sinia CEO Ari-Jussi Napila said the sudden interruption in service meant the cable was completely severed by some external force, although a physical inspection had not yet been carried out. No one has used the word sabotage to describe what happened. Napila said the damage occurred near the southern tip of the Swedish island of Oland and could take five to 15 days to repair.

Within walking distance of Finnish cable

Another maritime data cable connecting Lithuania to Sweden was damaged on Sunday

A nearby link between Lithuania and Sweden was also damaged on Sunday. Telia Lietuva AB, Lithuania’s largest communications provider, said an undersea data cable linking the Baltic country to the Swedish island of Gotland was cut on Sunday. The cable is less than 10 meters from the finish cable. Finland’s Internet access is via Sweden, while Telia’s Lithuanian customers were not affected as their connection was rerouted through other means.

These two incidents of infrastructure failure in Baltic waters are in addition to the damage caused to the BalticConnector underwater gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable between Finland and Estonia in October 2023. Although the investigation has not yet been completed, the most likely hypothesis is that both ruptures were accidental, caused by the anchoring of the Chinese merchant ship New Polar Bear, which was headed to the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.

However, the largest and most worrying incident in the Baltic Sea was the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, for which alleged Russian or Ukrainian responsibility was alleged. The latest investigation points to a Ukrainian track.