Sweden Captures Ship Suspected of ‘Sabotage’ in Undersea Fiber Optic Cable Rupture– legalinsurrection.com
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Legal Insurrection readers may recall our report on the possible sabotage of critical communication cables in the Baltic Sea.
At the end of 2024, Sweden requested help investigating the Yi Peng 3, a Chinese-flagged bulk carrier suspected of being involved in the incident. The ship may have dragged its anchor over cables connecting Sweden to Lithuania and Finland to Germany.
Then, on Christmas Day 2024, the Estlink 2 undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia experienced an unexpected outage, reducing the cross-border power transmission capacity between the two countries substantially.
Finnish police investigated whether a Russian ship was involved, and NATO increased naval patrols in the Baltic.
Now an undersea fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and Sweden was damaged, likely due to “external factors”. The cable, owned by Latvia’s state radio and television center (LVRTC), links the Latvian town of Ventspils with Sweden’s Gotland island.
An undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, triggering an investigation by local and NATO maritime forces in the Baltic Sea.
“We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.
Latvia is coordinating with NATO and the countries of the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances, she said separately in a post on X.
Latvia’s navy earlier on Sunday said it had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other vessels were also subject to investigation.
