November 2024: Baltic Telecommunication Cable
The two undersea cables located more than 100 nautical miles (about 200 km) apart in the bottom of the Baltic Sea were broken on November 17 and 18, the latest incident in the region.
According to Telia Lietuva of Lithuania - a branch of Telia Sweden - the 218 km long Internet cable between Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland stopped operating at around 8:00 p.m. on October 17, local time.
The 1,200-km cable connecting Helsinki to Germany's Rostock port also stopped working at around 2am on November 18, said the Finnish state-owned telecommunications and cybersecurity company Cinia.
Investigators in the countries involved are tracking the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 on suspicion of 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 at the time of the two cable breaks, the ship was present near the two cables.
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 towed anchor in the early morning 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 the 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 yet to determine whether the ship damaged the Balticconnector pipeline and severed the cable accidentally or intentionally. The final conclusions of the investigation are yet to be reached.
September 2022: Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 sabotage
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 have recorded several underwater explosions, about 17 hours apart, off the Danish island of Bornholm. These explosions severed three of the four branches of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, pushing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
In the Nord Stream investigation, Sweden found traces of explosives on some items collected from the site of the ruptured pipeline, confirming that this was a deliberate attack. However, in 2024, both Sweden and Denmark concluded their investigations into Nord Stream without identifying the culprit.
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, causing Russia to lose its gas export route to the European market. These countries have also denied involvement.
In August this year, Germany issued an arrest warrant in Europe for a Ukrainian diving coach accused of being a member of the Nord Stream pipeline blasting group. However, the Nord Stream suspect has left Poland and returned to Ukraine.
