Undersea cables in Baltic Sea cut, Germany and Finland fear sabotage

Probes launched after communication cables between new Nato members Finland and Sweden and alliance partners Germany and Lithuania were damaged

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The 1,200km cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock being laid in 2015. File photo: Lehtikuva via AFP

Published: 6:40am, 19 Nov 2024Updated: 11:36am, 19 Nov 2024

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 1,200km (745 miles) 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 218km 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.

C-Lion1 runs for 1,200km from the Finnish capital Helsinki to the German Baltic Sea port city of Rostock. File photo: Lehtikuva via AFP

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”.

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.