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This photo from October 2015 shows the C-Lion1 submarine cable being laid off the coast of Finland.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Lehtikuva/Heikki Saukkomaa)

Following damage to two data cables in the Baltic Sea, the Swedish authorities are investigating possible sabotage. The police of the Scandinavian NATO country and the responsible public prosecutor, Henrik Söderman, announced that the facts are currently being classified as sabotage. 

The Swedes have thus confirmed a suspicion previously expressed by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Pistorius assumes that the damage to the undersea cables between Finland and Germany and between Sweden and Lithuania was caused deliberately. "Nobody believes that these cables were cut by mistake," said the SPD politician in Brussels. Sabotage must be assumed. However, there is no evidence of this as yet.

However, initial indications seem to point to suspicious ship movements in the region. These movements coincided in time and space with the incidents at the cables, the Swedish Minister for Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, told TV4. This had prompted the police to launch an investigation into suspected sabotage.

According to the Swedish broadcaster SVT, particular attention is being paid to a Chinese ship that is said to have passed the fiber optic cables on its way from a Russian oil port at the times in question.

Data highway between Helsinki and Rostock
One of the affected cables, called C-Lion1, runs for 1173 kilometers between Helsinki and Rostock. On Monday, the Finnish state-owned company Cinia discovered a defect in the undersea cable, which was commissioned in 2016 and acts as a kind of data highway on the seabed connecting Central Europe and data centers in Northern Europe. In part, the connection follows the same route as the Nord Stream pipelines that were destroyed two years ago.

Cinia assumes that the cable broke at the bottom of the Baltic Sea and was severed by an external force, such as an anchor or a bottom trawl. Whether it was intentional or not - like many things in the case, this is still unclear. Finnish Internet users have reportedly not experienced any major disruption so far. According to the Finnish Transport and Communications Authority, data traffic has not been permanently disrupted either. According to Cinia, it will take around five to 15 days to repair the cable.

It also became known on Monday that another data cable, the Arelion communication cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania, was damaged in the depths of the Baltic Sea. The General Prosecutor's Office in Vilnius is investigating the circumstances and gathering information about the damage to the cable that occurred on Sunday.

This cable is said to be quite old and has experienced failures in the past, usually related to shipping errors. What is suspicious this time, however, is that this cable and C-Lion1 cross at a point east of Gotland.

"We certainly can't rule out sabotage, as there have been warning signals before. This would not be the first time and it would be nothing new," said the designated head of the Lithuanian government Gintautas Paluckas.

Critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea in NATO's focus
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines a good seven months later, the critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea has been the focus of increased public attention, particularly from NATO. In the fall of 2023, the Balticconnector pipeline, an important energy line between Finland and Estonia, was cut, also damaging a data cable between the two EU states.

According to Finnish investigators, the pipeline was most likely destroyed by the anchor of a Chinese container ship called the "Newnew Polar Bear". It is still unclear whether the incident was an accident or deliberate sabotage.