A new subsea data cable incident occurred in the Baltic Sea on Thursday, raising concerns about the vulnerability of underwater infrastructure in the heavily trafficked shipping lane. The incident adds to increasing fears of potential sabotage in the region.
Mattias Lindholm, a spokesman for the Swedish Coast Guard, told The New York Times that the C-Lion1 Finland-Germany fiber line was damaged off the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. He provided no details on when the damage occurred or what caused it.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden said that his government took “all reports of possible damage to infrastructure in the Baltic Sea very seriously.”
Finnish networking company Cinia, which operates the high-speed fiber line, told Bloomberg that the connection between Finland and Germany remains uninterrupted. However, they noted there appears to be a “scratch” on the line but provided no further details.
What is clear is that the cable was not completely severed, unlike previous incidents in recent years.
Between November and January, there were three incidents of damaged undersea cables in the Baltic Sea – from data cables to power cables…
“It’s a great concern to see the number of incidents over recent months in our critical undersea infrastructure,” Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of the European Commission for tech sovereignty and security, told reporters in Helsinki, adding, “These incidents have the potential to disrupt vital services to our society, such as connectivity and electricity transmission, and also carry a significant security risk.”
However, a Washington Post article last month citing anonymous officials said these cable incidents were likely caused by negligence rather than sabotage. Sure.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/21/2025 – 07:45
