Sweden says launched investigation into new undersea cable breach in Baltic Sea

Swedish police are investigating a suspected case of sabotage of an undersea telecoms cable in the Baltic Sea, and the country’s coast guard has deployed a vessel to the area where multiple seabed cables have been damaged in recent months.

The Baltic Sea region is on alert and the NATO alliance has boosted its presence after a series of power cable, telecom and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Most have been caused by civilian ships dragging their anchors.

Finnish telecom operator Cinia said on Friday that it had detected minor damage on its C-Lion1 undersea fibre-optic link connecting Finland and Germany but that there was no impact on the cable’s functionality.

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Swedish police said they were investigating the matter because the breach had occurred in Sweden’s economic zone, police spokesperson Mathias Rutegard said.

“The preliminary investigation relates to suspected sabotage,” Rutegard said.

Police in a separate statement said no suspects had been identified and that the investigation would seek to clarify what happened and “whether it is new or old damage”.

Some Baltic Sea incidents have been ruled accidental, including the cutting last month of a different telecoms cable in Swedish waters, while other cases are still under police investigation. No prosecutions have been made so far.

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The European Commission, responding to the recent spate of outages, said on Friday it will propose boosting surveillance of undersea cables and establishing a fleet of vessels available to carry out repairs in emergencies.

While the plan covered all of Europe, it would include a Baltic Sea hub intended to detect potential incidents in the area before they even occur, European Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen told a press conference in Helsinki.

Friday’s incident marks the third time in recent months that Cinia’s C-Lion1 cable has been damaged, after it was completely severed in November and December last year.

The company said on January 7 that the cable was fully operational again after the second breach occurred on December 26.

The Swedish coastguard said it had sent a vessel to help investigate the incident off the island of Gotland.

Sweden’s prosecution authority said it was not involved in the investigation of the cable breach.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the government was being briefed and that damage to any undersea infrastructure was particularly concerning amid the current security situation.