Written by Andrius Setas and Johan Ahander
STOCKHOLM/VILNIUS (Reuters) – An undersea fiber cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, prompting NATO to deploy patrol ships in the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities, Latvia said.
The country’s prosecutors said Sweden’s security service took control of a ship as part of the investigation.
“We are now denying a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation,” Chief Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.
NATO has been coordinating military ships and aircraft under its recently deployed mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentinel.” The effort follows a series of incidents in which power cables, communications links and gas pipelines were damaged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Latvian Prime Minister Ivica Selina said her government was coordinating with NATO and other countries in the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances surrounding the latest incident.
“We have decided that there is likely external damage and that it is significant,” Selena told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.
The Latvian Navy said earlier on Sunday that it had sent a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other ships were also under investigation.
Data from the Marine Ship Tracking Service showed that up to several thousand commercial ships were making their way through the Baltic Sea at any given time, and a number of them passed the broken cable on Sunday.
MarineTraffic data showed that one of these ships, a Malta-based bulk carrier, was grounded into Swedish waters by a Swedish coastal ship on Sunday evening. It was later based out of the Swedish Navy base at Karlskrona in southern Sweden.
It was not immediately clear whether Vezhen, which traversed the fiber optic cable at 0045 GMT Sunday, was under investigation.
A Swedish Coast Guard spokesman declined to comment on Vezhen or the position of the Coast Guard vessels.
Bulgarian shipping company Bolger Shipping, which includes Vizhn among its fleet, did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.
NATO cooperation
Swedish Navy spokesman Jimmy Adamson previously told Reuters that it was too early to determine the cause of the damage to the cable or whether it was intentional or a technical error.
“NATO ships and aircraft are working with national resources from the Baltic Sea countries to investigate and, if necessary, take action,” the alliance said in a statement on Sunday.
Swedish Prime Minister ULF Kristersson said that his country cooperates closely with NATO and Latvia.
NATO said last week it would deploy squads, patrol aircraft and maritime drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure and reserve the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat.
Finnish police last month seized a tanker carrying Russian oil and said they suspected the ship had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Power Line 2 and four communications cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.
Finland’s prime minister said in a statement that the latest cable damage highlighted the need for increased protection for critical subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.
The Latvian Navy said the cable that broke on Sunday connected the Latvian town of Ventspils with the island of Gotland in Sweden, and was damaged in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone.
Communications providers have been able to switch to alternative transmission methods, the cable operator and Latvian State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC) said in a statement, adding that it was seeking to contract a vessel to begin repairs. (LVRTC), adding that it was seeking to contract a vessel to begin repairs.
“The exact nature of the damage can be determined only after cable repair work begins,” LVRTC said.
A spokesman for the operator said the cable was laid at depths of more than 50 meters (164 feet).
Unlike seabed gas pipelines and power cables, which can take several months to repair after damage, fiber optic cables that suffered damage in the Baltic Sea were restored within weeks.
