Two submarine communications cables in the Baltic Sea have been taken offline and at least one appears to have been physically severed. CNN received confirmation on Sunday morning from a local telecom company that a cable between Lithuania and Sweden had been cut. A second cable, about 60 to 60 miles from the first, provides communications between Finland and Germany. The cause of that outage has yet to be determined, but officials suspect “intentional damage.”
The outages follow a September warning from the US about an increased risk of Russian ‘sabotage’ of submarine cables. This came after a joint investigation by public broadcasters from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland that Russia had deployed a fleet of spy ships in Nordic waters. They were reportedly part of a program designed to sabotage the cables (and wind farms).
This does not leave European countries completely without online communications, as data is typically routed over multiple cables to avoid over-reliance on a single cable.
Cinia, the state-controlled Finnish company that oversees the second cable, said it has not yet been determined what caused the outage because they have not yet physically inspected it. However, the sudden disruption suggests that it was also cut off by an outside force.
The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany issued a joint statement on Monday. “We are deeply concerned about the severed submarine cable connecting Finland and Germany in the Baltic Sea,” they wrote. “The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional harm speaks volumes about the volatility of our times. A thorough investigation is being conducted. Our European security is threatened not only by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also by hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Protecting our shared critical infrastructure is critical to our security and the resilience of our societies.”
The cable between Lithuania and Sweden, which handles about a third of Lithuania’s internet capacity, is expected to be repaired “in the coming weeks”, and the weather could determine the precise timing.
