November 2024: Baltic Telecom Cable
Two undersea cables located more than 100 nautical miles (about 200 km) apart at the bottom of the Baltic Sea were severed on November 17 and 18, the latest incident in the region.
According to Lithuania's Telia Lietuva - a subsidiary of the Swedish company Telia - the 218 km long Internet cable between Lithuania and Sweden's Gotland Island stopped working at around 8:00 p.m. on October 17, local time.
The Finnish state-controlled telecommunications and cybersecurity company Cinia said the 1,200-km cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock also stopped working at around 2 a.m. on November 18.
Investigators in the countries involved are tracking the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 for possible involvement in the cable break. The Yi Peng 3 left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on November 15. Reuters analysis of MarineTraffic data shows that the ship was near the two cables at the time of the two breaks.
October 2023: Balticconnector pipeline and cables
Last year, the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea was severed. Finnish investigators later determined that the Chinese container ship NewNew Polar Bear had pulled anchor in the early hours of October 8, 2023.
Estonian police suspect the Chinese ship also damaged two different cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden on October 7-8, before damaging the Balticconnector gas pipeline en route to a port near St Petersburg, Russia.
China has pledged to both Finland and Estonia to assist in the investigation.
Investigators in both Finland and Estonia have not been able to determine whether the ship damaged the Balticconnector pipeline and severed the cable by accident or on purpose. The final conclusions of the investigation are yet to be released.
September 2022: Sabotage of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2
Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 are two gas pipeline systems in the Baltic Sea built and controlled by Russia's Gazprom. The pipeline was sabotaged on September 26, 2022.
Swedish seismologists recorded a series of underwater explosions, about 17 hours apart, off the Danish island of Bornholm. The explosions severed three of the four branches of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, sending large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
During the Nord Stream investigation, Sweden found traces of explosives on some of the items recovered from the site of the rupture, confirming that it was a targeted attack. However, in 2024, both Sweden and Denmark concluded their Nord Stream investigations without identifying the perpetrators.
Some Western officials have accused Russia of blowing up its own gas pipeline. Russia has denied the accusation.
For its part, Russia accused the UK, US, and Ukraine of causing the Nord Stream explosion, which caused Russia to lose its gas export route to the European market. These countries also denied involvement.
In August, Germany issued a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor accused of being part of the group that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. However, the Nord Stream suspect left Poland and returned to Ukraine.
