(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. That incident and damage to a nearby link between Lithuania and Sweden, uncovered Sunday, are being probed by Swedish police as possible sabotage. 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 last October 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.
The Swedish police started a preliminary probe into the breaches on the premise of sabotage, according to a website statement on Tuesday.
“Situations like these must be assessed with the growing threat posed by Russia in our neighbourhood as a backdrop,” the ministry said in a separate statement.
Lithuania’s prosecutor office said Tuesday it was collecting information on the incident. The Baltic nation’s defense minister, Laurynas Kasciunas, said the EU would have to respond with sanctions should investigations show this was an act of sabotage against critical infrastructure.
All four nations affected by cable breaches are also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Last October, the military bloc pledged to respond on behalf of its newest member if the damage proves to be intentional.
“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.”
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation needs to gather more information before deciding on which premise the acts will be investigated, Deputy Director Timo Kilpelainen said at a news conference in Helsinki on Tuesday.
A repair ship that is expected to leave the port of Calais on Thursday is due to check the site to try and identify the cause of the incident, according to officials at Finland’s Cinia Oy, which operates the data link with Germany.
--With assistance from Milda Seputyte and Charles Daly.
(Updates with Swedish, Finnish investigations from second paragraph.)
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