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

Despite the presence of the Chinese cargo vessel Yi Peng 3 near the damaged cables, no direct link has been established, and investigations are ongoing.

A Sea King helicopter flies over the Baltic Sea near Rostock, Germany, on June 5, 2023. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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.

“Our authorities are on their toes and it was quickly established that there are ship movements that correspond in time and space with the interruptions on each cable,” Bohlin told Swedish public service broadcaster SVT. “There are ship movements that raise question marks.”

The Swedish navy is helping police and prosecutors with the investigation, a naval spokesman said on Nov. 20.

The Danish navy is currently near a Chinese cargo vessel in the area. The Yi Peng 3, a 75,200-dwt (deadweight ton) bulk carrier flagged under China, was near the site of the damaged cables and has remained anchored in the Kattegat Strait since late on Nov. 18, according to data from the maritime tracking service MarineTraffic.

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.

Data show that the Danish navy ships DNK Navy Patrol P525 and the HDMS Hvidbjoernen were near the vessel, located in the Danish Straits, as of press time.

In a Nov. 20 post on social media platform X, the Danish armed forces said: “[We] can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3. At this time, the Armed Forces have no further comments.”

‘No One Believes That These Cables Were Cut Accidentally’

A 135-mile internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island went out of service at about 8 a.m. GMT on Nov. 17, according to Lithuania’s Telia Lietuva, part of Sweden’s Telia Company.

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.”

On Nov. 18, Telia Chief Technology Officer Andrius Semeskevicius told the Lithuanian television station LRT that the failures “are mostly related to shipping, when a ship hooks the cable and breaks it off somewhere in a shallow place, close to the shore, by dropping anchor incorrectly.”

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius speaks during a news conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on March 7, 2023. Ints Kalnins/Reuters

Kremlin: Absurd to Blame Russia

There are about 400 subsea cables across the world, connecting islands, countries, regions, and continents. Subsea cables, which are about as thick as a garden hose, use optical fiber technology to transmit electronic communications data at the speed of light, according to the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity.

The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a Nov. 18 joint statement that they were “deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable connecting Finland and Germany in the Baltic Sea.”

The ministers said that the fact “that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times.”

“A thorough investigation is underway,” the statement reads. “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies.”

Lithuania’s navy said on Nov. 19 that it had subsequently increased the surveillance of its waters.

Russia on Nov. 20 dismissed any suggestions that it had been involved.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news briefing, “It is quite absurd to continue to blame Russia for everything without any reason.”

The Epoch Times contacted the Swedish minister of civil defense and the Danish navy for comment but did not hear back by press time. The Epoch Times was unable to contact Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, the owner of the Yi Peng 3 vessel.

Reuters contributed to this report.