(Bloomberg) -- German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said damage to two undersea data cables in the Baltic Sea has to be investigated as an act of sabotage, pointing to Russia as posing a hybrid and military threat to the European Union.
A high-speed data cable connecting Finland and Germany was cut early Monday by what was likely an external impact, according to Finnish authorities, while a nearby link between Lithuania and Sweden was also damaged. All four nations are also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. So far, no evidence of Russia’s involvement has been provided.
“This is a very clear sign that something is going on there,” Pistorius told reporters on Tuesday before a meeting of EU defense ministers in Brussels, saying the bloc needs to better protect its critical infrastructure. “Nobody believes that these cables were cut by accident and I don’t believe it was caused by anchors that accidentally caused the damage.”
“That means that we must assume, without knowing concretely who is responsible, that it was a hybrid action. And we must assume, without knowing for sure, that we’re talking about sabotage,” he said.
His comments hark back to similar incidents in the Baltic Sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including just over a year ago, when the anchor of a passing ship severed two data cables and a gas pipeline on the seabed of the Gulf of Finland. Russia has denied involvement in any of the incidents.
A reported Chinese probe has said the rupture of the Balticconnector gas pipeline by a Hong Kong-flagged vessel was due to storm conditions, while a senior Estonian official has questioned that conclusion.
The 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) high-speed fiber optic Helsinki-Rostock link serving data centers is damaged east of southern Sweden, and there’s a high likelihood that it’s completely cut as all of its fiber connections are down, executives of its owner and operator Cinia Oy said at a news conference on Monday. Finland’s internet access is routed through Sweden.
Telia Lietuva AB, Lithuania’s largest communications provider, said an undersea data cable linking the Baltic nation with Sweden’s Gotland island was cut Sunday. The cables cross as close as 10 meters from each other. Lithuania’s prosecutor office said Tuesday it was collecting information on the incident, while Swedish authorities have also launched a probe, civil defense minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin was cited as saying by broadcaster SVT.
“We had seen damages to critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea before,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told reporters in Vilnius on Tuesday. “Some of the incidents were malicious activity, targeted activity, some of it just negligence. In this case, it is still too early to come to final conclusions but obviously both options are possible.”
Asked whether there are signs of sabotage or intentional acts, Chief Executive Ari-Jussi Knaapila said on Monday there’s “no way to assess the reason right now.” A repair ship that was supposed to leave the port of Calais on Monday is due to check the site to try and identify the cause of the incident.
--With assistance from Milda Seputyte and Charles Daly.
(Updates with Swedish investigation in eighth paragraph.)
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