Swedish and Finnish authorities are investigating a suspected sabotage of an undersea telecom cable in the Baltic Sea, following a series of recent incidents involving damaged cables and pipelines in the region since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Finnish telecom operator Cinia confirmed that the C-Lion1 fibre-optic cable, linking Finland and Germany, was damaged again, marking the third such incident in recent months. The incident follows a series of outages affecting telecom, power, and gas infrastructure in the region, with some cases caused by civilian ships dragging anchors, while other cases remain under investigation with no suspects identified.
The European Commission plans to enhance undersea cable surveillance and create a fleet for emergency repairs, including a Baltic Sea hub to preempt future incidents. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson expressed concern over the damage to critical infrastructure amid heightened security tensions. Sweden’s coast guard has been deployed to the affected area near Gotland to investigate the damage.
