Damage to communication cables between new NATO members Finland and Sweden and their alliance partners Germany and Lithuania was likely sabotage, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday.
“No one believes that these cables were cut by mistake,” Pistorius said in Brussels at an EU defence ministers meeting to discuss the different threats facing the European Union.
The damage to the communication cables was reported in the Baltic Sea on Monday by the Finnish state-owned company Cinia.
Cinia announced that a defect had been detected in the C-Lion1 submarine data cable between Finland and Germany, which had interrupted communication links via the cable.
The Finnish Foreign Ministry and the German Foreign Office both said they are “deeply concerned.”
Previous incidents and high tensions between the NATO allies and Russia in the Baltic Sea region raised immediate speculation about the possibility of sabotage.
C-Lion1 runs for 1,173 kilometres from the Finnish capital Helsinki to the German Baltic Sea port city of Rostock, partly following the same route as the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that were destroyed two years ago.
The cable was put into operation in early 2016 and is the only undersea data cable that runs directly from Finland to Central Europe.
Cinia officials said they believe the cable broke at the bottom of the Baltic Sea and was severed by an external force, such as an anchor or a bottom trawl.
At a press conference held by the company, it was stated that the incident occurred in Swedish waters outside the busiest shipping areas.
It is not yet clear how long it will take to fix the problem on C-Lion1.
