Investigators believe the Chinese ship captain was incited by Russian intelligence to cut the cable with an anchor, unnamed sources involved in the investigation into the mysterious cable break near the Nord Stream pipeline told the Wall Street Journal.
China is still cooperating with the investigation and has ordered the ship to anchor, according to Chinese and European officials. However, Beijing has not yet allowed investigators to board the ship and question the crew.
The Wall Street Journal pointed out that the Merkuriy corvette of the Russian Black Sea Fleet - one of Russia's most advanced naval assets - monitored the Yi Peng 3 ship and then transmitted secret information to headquarters in Kaliningrad.
The source said that on November 21, the Merkuriy - which operates in the Mediterranean and often escorts Russian cargo ships - arrived in the Kattegat Strait and participated in electronic surveillance of the Yi Peng 3 and the area around the ship while escorting the General Skobelev tanker to the Baltic. The Russian escort ship relayed encrypted information to the headquarters in Kaliningrad - Russia's Baltic exclave.
On November 26, the missile corvette Merkuriy was escorting oil tankers in the Baltic Sea when the German frigate F223 approached. The F223 followed the two Russian ships to a location near the Danish island of Bornholm before dispatching a Sea Lynx helicopter – equipped with powerful surveillance equipment – to monitor them more closely. The Russian corvette responded by firing flares at the German helicopter, forcing the pilot to turn back.
The previously unreported incident, the Wall Street Journal noted, is part of an increasingly tense standoff between Russia and NATO in Europe, with the Baltic region emerging as a key flashpoint in a confrontation not seen since the height of the Cold War.
The German frigate F223 has also been deployed to patrol the area along with other warships from Germany, Denmark and Sweden, after the Chinese-owned bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was detained on November 19 on suspicion of being involved in the severing of two cables by dragging its anchor for hours.
Two cables were severed near the Nord Stream pipeline, one connecting Finland and Lithuania and one connecting Germany and Sweden. Since then, the Yi Peng 3 has been anchored in the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden, surrounded by police ships and NATO warships.
The Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 only began to change its area of operations in the spring of 2024. Yi Peng 3 began calling at Russian ports, including Murmansk and Ust-Luga, from that time on. Before that, the ship had not called at any Russian port since 2015.
The reason for the change of route in spring 2024 has not been announced. It is unclear whether the Yi Peng 3's change of route is related to the start of cooperation with the Russian side.
It is known that the ship's captain is Russian citizen Alexander Stechentsev.
In October 2023, the Chinese ship Newnew Polar Bear was also suspected of damaging a gas pipeline and telecommunications cable between Sweden, Finland and Estonia. The location and time of the cable and gas pipeline breakage coincided with the passage of the Newnew Polar Bear.
