This marks the second time in a year that Baltic Sea infrastructure — which includes communications cables and energy pipelines such as Nord Stream — has been damaged, raising concerns over security and sabotage.
Another telecom cable in the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island was damaged Sunday morning, telecom company Telia Lietuva, a branch of Sweden’s Telia, reported Monday.
In October last year, the Balticconnector gas pipeline and a telecom cable connecting Finland and Estonia were damaged. A telecom cable linking Estonia to Sweden was also damaged on the same night, along with one of Russia’s telecos cables in the Gulf of Finland. Investigations have since focused on a Chinese vessel, the Newnew Polar Bear, which was in the area during one of the incidents.
Häkkänen described such attacks on critical infrastructure in international waters as “kind of a new thing,” and said they are difficult to prevent.
“These undersea cables are quite likely the most difficult parts of our societies to protect when they are under international waters, at the seabed. So that’s why this is so difficult for Western countries,” he said.
