Two subsea cables severed in Baltic Sea

Germany and Finland have raised alarm over a severed subsea cable connecting the two countries in the Baltic Sea.

A subsea cable is an underwater fibre-optic cable designed for transmitting data across oceans and seas, enabling global internet and telecommunications connectivity.

According to Finnish state-controlled cyber security and telecoms company Cinia, its 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) cable stopped working at 02:00 am GMT on Monday and the incident is currently under investigation.

While its cause remains unknown, and no country yet has claimed responsibility for an attack, experts believe that cuts of this nature are unlikely to happen without some outside interference.

Cinia added that breaks like this do not happen “without an outside impact” and its chief executive, Ari-Jussi Knaapila indicated that it could take between five to 15 days to repair.

Releasing a joint statement, foreign ministers Elina Valtonen (Finland) and Annalena Baerbock (Germany) said:  “The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times.”

“Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors,” they added.

Another subsea cable linking Lithuania and Sweden also went out of service at 08:00am GMT on Sunday, according to Lithuanian telecom firm Telia Lietuva.

“It is absolutely central that it is clarified why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working,” added  Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Sweden’s minister of civil defence.

Neither of the incidents has affected internet traffic as other subsea cable routes were available.

The two cables join several similar incidents in the Baltic Sea over the last two years. In 2023, several telecom cables and a subsea gas pipeline were severely damaged.

Finnish and Estonian investigators have since blamed a Chinese container ship for dragging an anchor along the seabed, although it did not state whether this action was accidental or intentional.

In 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany were destroyed by explosions – the case is still being investigated by German authorities.

Read about the threat to subsea cables and how it can disrupt businesses, here.