(Bloomberg) -- The Danish military is staying near a Chinese ship that may be linked to damaged data cables in the Baltic Sea.
A high-speed fiber optic cable connecting Finland and Germany was cut early Monday by what was likely an external impact and a nearby link between Lithuania and Sweden was damaged on Sunday. It was the second such incident in the Baltic Sea in just over a year.
The bulk carrier, Yi Peng 3, was in the vicinity of the cables when they were damaged, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It has been anchored in the northern part of the Danish straits since Tuesday, with Danish Navy diving ship Soloven close by.
“We are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the Danish armed forces said in a post on X. The military stopped short of linking the ship to the cable incident, and said they had no further comments.
Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen called the situation “serious,” adding that it’s not certain that the ship is connected with any acts of sabotage. He declined to provide any details about the Danish military’s interaction with the ship.
Yi Peng 3 had departed Russian port Ust-Luga on Friday. While vessels sometimes stop for refueling at sea, its current location near Denmark is not a typical site for such activity.
The incidents are being probed by Swedish police as possible sabotage, and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday said the events have to be investigated as such an act.
Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, said on Wednesday that “China always fully fulfills flag state obligations and asks Chinese vessels to strictly abide by relevant laws and regulations.”
“We also attach great importance to protecting the safety and security of infrastructure,” he said, adding that China works “with the international community to vigorously advance the construction and protection of global information infrastructure including undersea cables.”
Germany has already stepped up patrols around its northern coastal areas due to the 2022 attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and protecting critical infrastructure is a top priority, Interior Ministry spokesman Cornelius Funke said at a news conference in Berlin.
The Swedish navy is conducting an investigation of the seabed to see what may have happened, spokesman Jimmie Adamsson told newspaper Goteborgs-Posten.
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation decided to open a criminal investigation into the damage caused to the sea cable between Finland and Germany, probing the incident as “aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with communications,” according to a statement.
“The theory regarding the Chinese ship is now dominant but we’ve got to wait until further confirmation,” said Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas, calling for a response once details of the act are known. “Hostile nations will keep pushing the line” if there’s no response, he said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said earlier Wednesday that it wouldn’t be a surprise if the severing of the two data cables in the Baltic Sea was found to be intentional.
“If the immediate assessment is that this is sabotage, and that it comes from outside, then it is obviously serious,” Frederiksen said, according to a report by news agency Ritzau.
There’s a high likelihood that a 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) high-speed fiber optic Helsinki-Rostock link serving data centers is completely cut as all of its fiber connections are down, its owner Cinia Oy has said. A repair ship expected to reach the site next week is due to try and identify what caused the breakage.
All four nations affected by cable breaches are also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Just over a year ago, the anchor of a passing ship severed two data cables and a gas pipeline on the seabed of the Gulf of Finland, and the military bloc pledged to respond if the damage proved to be intentional.
In his remarks, Pistorius pointed to Russia as posing a hybrid and military threat to the European Union. Russia has denied involvement in any of the incidents.
--With assistance from Iain Rogers, Tom Fevrier, Christopher Jungstedt, Christian Wienberg and Milda Seputyte.
(Updates with comments from Danish and Lithuanian defense ministers from fifth paragraph)
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