Ship’s Movements Coinciding With Damage to Baltic Sea Cables Raises Questions: Swedish Minister

The movements of an as-yet-unnamed ship coincided with the timing and location of recent damage to communication cables in the Baltic Sea, a Swedish minister said on Nov. 20.
Two undersea fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged: one between Lithuania and Sweden was severed on Nov. 17, and another between Finland and Germany was cut on Nov. 18, less than 24 hours later.
The damage happened in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone. Swedish prosecutors started a preliminary investigation on Nov. 19 on suspicion of possible sabotage.
Swedish Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin said on Nov. 20 that the ship’s movements were recorded by the Swedish armed forces and coast guard.
The Swedish navy is helping police and prosecutors with the investigation, a naval spokesman said on Nov. 20.
Despite the presence of the Yi Peng 3 near the damaged cables, no direct link between the ship and the incidents has been established, and investigations are ongoing.
Later, Finnish state-controlled cybersecurity and telecoms company Cinia revealed that a separate 745-mile C-Lion1 cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock also stopped working, at about 2 a.m. GMT on Nov. 18.
On Nov. 19, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius dismissed the likelihood of accidental damage caused by ship anchors or other routine maritime activities.
“No one believes that these cables were cut accidentally,” Pistorius said before a meeting of European Union defense ministers. “I also don’t want to believe in versions that these were ship anchors that accidentally caused the damage.
“So we have to state—without knowing in concrete terms who it came from—that this is a hybrid action. And we also have to assume—without already knowing it, obviously—that this is sabotage.”