"Russia, whose Nord Stream pipeline was targeted by sabotage, cares about the security of its vital undersea infrastructure like no other country," TASS quoted the Russian Embassy in Denmark as saying in a statement.
"It is important to ensure a thorough investigation and clarify why the Baltic Sea submarine cables are currently not working. Speculation on this issue will not facilitate efforts to uncover the truth," the Russian Embassy in Denmark stressed.
Two undersea cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea on November 17 and 18. One connects Germany and Finland, running alongside the Nord Stream pipeline; the other connects Sweden and Lithuania.
Finnish government-owned telecoms operator Cinia has reported a problem with its cable linking Finland to Germany. Repairs to the cable could take between five and 15 days, the company said.
The German and Finnish foreign ministries expressed concern about the damage in a joint statement on November 18 and said a thorough investigation was underway.
Damage to the second cable was later reported by Swedish telecommunications company Telia. The Swedish Public Prosecutor's Office has opened a preliminary investigation into the cable disruption, classifying the incident as sabotage.
The Baltic Sea has become a hotspot for undersea incidents and sabotage since the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, owned by a consortium of energy companies including Russian gas giant Gazprom and running from Russia to Germany, were rocked by explosions in September 2022.
More than two years later, despite much criticism, no one has been held accountable for the Nord Stream sabotage.
Each pipeline has two branches; the explosion left three of the four branches inoperable.
In April 2023, a joint investigation by public broadcasters from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland claimed that Russia had deployed a fleet of spy ships in the Baltic Sea to carry out sabotage operations.
For its part, Russia has blamed the United States and its allies, while German and American media have reported that the suspects could be a group of Ukrainians.
Tensions have continued to rise since then.
Just over a year after the Nord Stream explosion, in October 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia – jointly owned by Estonian gas and electricity company Elering and Finnish gas transmission company Gasgrid – was damaged in an underwater incident. Nearby data cables were also reportedly broken.
Investigators in Finland and Estonia allege that a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor along the seabed caused damage that took six months to repair. They did not say whether the damage was intentional.
The Baltic Sea has a shallow, narrow basin with three chokepoints and is surrounded by eight NATO countries.
It also borders Russia, with Saint Petersburg - Russia's second largest city - located on the eastern corner of the Gulf of Finland and Russia's Baltic Fleet located in the Kaliningrad exclave.
Tormod Heier, a professor at the Norwegian Defence College, told Al Jazeera that post-Cold War tensions in the region began in 2004 with the entry of three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – into NATO.
