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European Officials: Baltic Undersea Cables Cut in Apparent Act of Sabotage

European Officials: Baltic Undersea Cables Cut in Apparent Act of Sabotage

U.S. allies warn of ‘hybrid warfare’, and Russia is the top suspect…but a Chinese ship has been detained in connection with the incident.

The last time we reported on the Baltic Sea, the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline had been destroyed in an explosion. The system was destroyed, and while “state actors” were blamed, investigative teams in the region did not identify any.

Now, amid increasing tensions involving Russia’s change in nuclear warfare policy after Biden blessed the use of American-supplied longer-range missiles by Ukraine, comes reports that two undersea telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea have been severed in recent days.

European officials indicated that they believed Russia was behind the sabotage.

Russia is suspected of orchestrating another major act of sabotage in Europe after two key fiber-optic data cables running below the Baltic Sea were cut off in quick succession earlier this week, government officials said.

A 135-mile internet link connecting Sweden’s Gotland Island and Lithuania stopped working on Sunday morning, and a similar 700-mile-long cable linking Finland and Germany ceased to operate the following night, according to government officials and telecom operators.

Swedish police started a preliminary sabotage investigation on Tuesday with assistance from the coast guard and the armed forces, the country’s police authority said.

German and Finnish officials have expressed deep concern about these incidents, supporting the proposal that they may have been intentional sabotages rather than accidents.

While the exact causes of the incidents are still being investigated, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he believed it was likely sabotage.

”Nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed,” he told reporters on Tuesday morning ahead of a ministerial meeting in Brussels, Belgium. “We have to know that, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a hybrid action and we also have to assume that, without knowing by whom yet, that this is sabotage,“ Pistorius said.

His comments came after the foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement on Monday evening that they were “deeply concerned” about the severed cable between their nations, and raised the possibility of the incident being part of a “hybrid warfare.”

“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times. A thorough investigation is underway,” the statement continued. “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

Hybrid warfare is a military strategy that combines conventional military tactics with unconventional methods, including irregular warfare, cyber operations, and psychological warfare. In this case, the move would disrupt communications without openly declaring war.

I would be remiss if I did not include reports that Denmark has seized a Chinese vessel in the wake of this incident.

The U.K. newspaper Financial Times reported that investigators of the severed cables are looking into the movements of the Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, which was en route to Egypt’s Port Said from the Russian port of Ust-Luga. Social media reports said that the vessel had a Russian captain, although this has not been independently confirmed.

The Yi Peng 3 had passed close to both cables around the time each was cut on Sunday and Monday, according to maritime tracking group Marine Traffic. The vessel was then followed by the Danish Navy, according to open-source intelligence analysts.

“Ship suspected of damaging comms cables x 2 in Baltic Sea has been detained by Danish Navy,” posted OSINT account auonsson on Bluesky, which tracks vessels in the Baltic. The post said that it was “anchored just outside Danish territory with patrol/dive Y311 SØLØVEN vessel guarding her.”

The sabotage damaged the cable connecting Lithuania and Sweden, which accounts for about one-third of Lithuania’s internet capacity. However, traffic was restored following the interruption, likely due to rerouting through alternative connections.

The C-Lion1 cable, the sole direct connection between Finland and central Europe, experienced a complete disruption of all fiber connections. This damage disrupted communication services between Finland and Germany, though the full extent of the impact is still being assessed.

Russia rejects the premise that it has been involved in sabotage, yet Western officials have implicated the nation in planting incendiary devices in the United Kingdom and Germany.

Western security official told NBC News this month that Russia was responsible for sending two incendiary devices to DHL logistics hubs in Germany and the U.K. in July as part of a wider sabotage campaign to possibly start fires aboard aircraft bound for North America.

The head of Britain’s intelligence agency, MI5, said last month that Russia’s GRU intelligence service was on a mission to generate “sustained mayhem on British and European streets.”

Finland and Sweden have joined NATO in the past two years, bolstering the alliance’s eastern flank in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly rejected Western countries’ allegations that it is orchestrating a sabotage campaign in Europe.

I suspect tension is going to rise even higher in the near future.

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Comments


 
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Peter Moss | November 20, 2024 at 5:27 pm

You can’t blame Putin for sowing as much chaos as he can muster before the strong horse replaces the horse’s arse.

Before you know it the Ukrainian war will be over, we’ll be auditing where all that money actually went (and hopefully prosecuting people into a fine dust onnacounta you know that there’s major graft going on).

Party’s over fellahs. Last call!

Of course the cut it. Why wouldn’t they? Biden* blew up their pipeline. Oh wait, does stating the obvious make me a ‘Russian toadie?’


     
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    Tiki in reply to Paul. | November 20, 2024 at 7:12 pm

    May 2015: Balts Say Russian Navy Bullying Undersea Cable Crews. In the most recent incident, a vessel from the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet entered Lithuania’s exclusive economic zone on April 30 and headed toward a NordBalt construction ship managed by a Swedish-Swiss engineering company. The 450-kilometer underground NordBalt cable, approved by the Swedish and Lithuanian governments in 2013 and due to be completed in December, will be able to transmit up to 700 megawatts from Nybro in Sweden to the Lithuanian coastal city of Klaipeda.

    ==============

    2022: Norway reported that an undersea fiber optic cable connecting a satellite ground station on Svalbard to the Norwegian mainland was severed.

    Norwegian media reported a Russian vessel traveling back and forth several times over the damaged section.”

    ===============

    2023. The Chinese owned Newnew Polar Bear cargo ship dragged anchor across the Balticconnect energy pipeline located between Estonia and Finland – leaving a kilometers long furrow on the Finnish Sea bottom.

    Photographs taken by Russians of the ship at its St. Petersburg quay showed a missing anchor. The Finns found and retrieved the broken anchor.

    Months later the Chinese admitted the NNPB was involved in the incident.

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      Tiki in reply to Tiki. | November 20, 2024 at 7:30 pm

      Lithuania’s Energy Minister, Rokas Masiulis, says that Russia repeatedly tried to hinder the laying of the NordBalt undersea power cable between Lithuania and Sweden.

      “I can say today that Russian navy ships hindered construction four times.” The minister said that only two prior incidents had been made public.

      The testing of the LitPol Link interconnection with Poland is expected to be completed by the end of December. The testing of the undersea cable to Sweden, which has been suspended due to a fire, is planned to resume in January 2016.

      ==================
      2023-10-27 The Lithuanian Navy has dispatched a mine countermeasures vessel to monitor the NordBalt power link with Sweden, in response to incidents in the Baltic Sea where a gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable between Finland and Estonia were damaged.


         
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        Tiki in reply to Tiki. | November 21, 2024 at 9:11 am

        A Russian spy ship has been escorted out of the Irish Sea after it entered Irish-controlled waters and patrolled an area containing critical energy and internet submarine pipelines and cables.

        It was spotted on Thursday east of Dublin and south-west of the Isle of Man but Norwegian, US, French and British navy and air defence services initially observed it accompanying a Russian warship, the Admiral Golovko, through the English channel last weekend.


 
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thad_the_man | November 20, 2024 at 6:02 pm

We can escalate. Russia is just bluffing. Don’t worry about anything.
Russia: Call.


     
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    Tiki in reply to thad_the_man. | November 20, 2024 at 7:37 pm

    Remember when those mysterious “little green men” invaded the Crimean Peninsula and no one could figure out where they came from? Despite the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten publishing photographs of 100’s of unmarked military transport trucks transiting Rostov-on-the-Don?

    You won’t believe what happened next!


     
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    diver64 in reply to thad_the_man. | November 21, 2024 at 5:33 am

    Shows that Russia doesn’t need to launch a nuke in response to Brandon’s attempt to start WW3 before leaving office. There are many other ways to respond that will not hurt Ukraine as much as it will hurt The West.


     
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    OwenKellogg-Engineer in reply to thad_the_man. | November 21, 2024 at 7:11 am

    Bluffing….like firing a conventional ICBM into the Ukraine??


 
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Petrushka | November 20, 2024 at 6:05 pm

Another vote for StarLink.

Biden and team need to GO.


 
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Mt. Fuji | November 20, 2024 at 6:13 pm

Nobody bats an eye when the gas pipeline was blown up but when the fiber line is cut, everyone is losing their minds. WTH?

I believe the Brits pioneered cable cutting in 1914.


 
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Olinser | November 20, 2024 at 6:34 pm

You weren’t actually stupid enough to think you could brag about bombing targets in Russia and they wouldn’t do anything, right?

It’s long past time we dispensed with this farce. Either the EU actually pays for this war or they send troops, but we’re sick of this charade.


 
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CommoChief | November 20, 2024 at 6:53 pm

Maybe these accusers should finish up with release all the supposed ‘proof’ Russia blew up Nord Stream before pushing more unproven allegations.


     
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    CincyJan in reply to CommoChief. | November 20, 2024 at 11:00 pm

    Nord Stream was a pipeline for Russian oil/gas to Germany. They didn’t blow it up. We did.


       
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      DaveGinOly in reply to CincyJan. | November 21, 2024 at 3:03 am

      Considering that if the Russians wanted to stop their oil and gas from flowing through the NS pipeline, all they had to do was shut the valves at their end, yeah, Russia, even if it wanted to cut oil and gas to Germany (etc.), didn’t have to blow them up. They represented a considerable investment and severing them served no purpose for Russia that simply closing the valves would not have served, at far less expense to them in the long run.


         
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        CommoChief in reply to DaveGinOly. | November 21, 2024 at 8:04 am

        Exactly.

        It is incredibly surreal watching some on the center/right adopting neocon/globalists talking points about Russia, Russia, Russia generated by the same folks they decry as deep state/swamp operatives.


 
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Dimsdale | November 20, 2024 at 7:00 pm

Scuttle or seize the offending ship. Let the crew swim home.

It’s obviously SPECTRE. The actor who played Blofeld has a suspicious last name.

“The head of Britain’s intelligence agency, MI5, said last month that Russia’s GRU intelligence service was on a mission to generate “sustained mayhem on British and European streets.”

I’d say the Russians should save their time and money as the Muslim Invaders are doing quite well at that already.

how much you wanna wager there is next to ZERO security on our own infrastructure?

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