Newsman: Germany said the damage to two underwater telecommunications cables linking Germany to Finland and Sweden to Lithuania went dead on Sunday and Monday. Two cables run between the countries through the Baltic Sea. Germany said the damage to two underwater telecommunications cables is “sabotage,” in an incident reminiscent of the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.
“We have to conclude, without knowing exactly who did it, that it is a hybrid action and we also have to assume — without knowing it — that it is sabotage,” Pistorius told reporters in Brussels on the sidelines of a Council of the European Union meeting.
It marked the second time in recent years that a German undersea pipeline was sabotaged after three out of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Germany to Russia exploded in 2022.
While the U.S. and its European allies initially suggested Russia was to blame, investigative reports from the Washington Post and German publication Der Spiegel released more than a year later linked a Ukrainian military colonel with ties to Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces to the attack. According to the reports, five men and a woman aboard a yacht hired by a Ukrainian company in Poland placed explosives on the pipelines.
“Nobody believes that these cables were accidentally cut,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters ahead of a European Union meeting in Brussels on Tuesday. “I also don’t want to believe in versions that these were ship anchors that accidentally caused the damage.”
“We have to conclude, without knowing exactly who did it, that it was a ‘hybrid’ action,” he said. “And we must also assume, without knowing it, of course, that it is sabotage.”
Lithuania on latest ‘sabotage’ said, it is looking into the incident and had increased naval patrols in the area.
Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans suggested Russia was behind the damage, although he said he did not have specific information.
“We see increasing activity of especially Russia on our seas, aimed at espionage and possibly even sabotage of our vital infrastructure,” he said.
U.S. allies warned of “hybrid warfare” Tuesday after two undersea communication cables were severed in the Baltic Sea, raising suspicions that they may be the latest acts of sabotage targeting the West as it clashes with Russia.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Tuesday that “no one believes that these cables were cut accidentally” after a rupture in a 730-mile cable linking Germany and Finland was detected Monday.
“We have to state, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a ‘hybrid’ action,” he said. “And we also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it is sabotage.”
Western officials have accused the Kremlin of intensifying a campaign targeting Ukraine’s allies while assaulting its neighbor in a war that reached 1,000 days on Tuesday.
“Russia is systematically attacking European security architecture,” the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Spain and the U.K. said in a joint statement.
“Moscow’s escalating hybrid activities against NATO and E.U. countries are also unprecedented in their variety and scale, creating significant security risks.”The C-Lion1 submarine telecommunications cable runs between Finland and Germany.
Russia has repeatedly rejected allegations from Western countries that it is orchestrating a sabotage campaign in Europe.
The telecommunications cable running between Germany and Finland that was severed is known as the C-Lion1 cable, and is the only direct connection of its kind between Finland and Central Europe. It runs from the German city of Rostock to the Finnish capital Helsinki.
The 1,173 kilometer-long cable follows a similar route to the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines, which exploded in September 2022 in an apparent act of sabotage.
Such cables are laid by specially-modified ships that carry the cable on board and slowly lay it down on the seabed. When they’re damaged, divers or small submersibles are sent down to investigate any cuts before the two ends are brought to the surface for repair.
Finnish operator CINIA said Monday that the repair time for submarine cables is between 5 and 15 days.
Finland’s Europe Minister Joakim Strand called the incident “concerning.”
“Our authorities together with the companies are proactively investigating the case. The telecommunications have been re-routed to back-up connections and practical impacts have been minimal. The cable of course will be repaired. It is too soon to speculate on any causes but of course this is concerning,” he added.
The suspected case of sabotage comes as European foreign ministers, meeting in Warsaw on Tuesday, warned that Russia is “systematically attacking” Europe’s security architecture.
