The cutting of a subsea cable in the Baltic Sea this week was likely an act of “sabotage,” Germany’s defense minister has said.
Boris Pistorius was speaking to reporters after two cables - the 1,200km C-Lion1 Helsinki-Rostock cable and the BCS East-West link cable between Lithuania and Sweden - were severed on Monday. The incidents are thought to have happened on the seabed just 10 meters apart.
Update: A Chinese-registered bulk carrier is currently being investigated for its potential involvement in the cuts.
Original story continues: Referring to the C-Lion1, Pistorius said “no one believes that these cables were cut accidentally" and said the incident was possibly an act of "hybrid" warfare.
However, it is important to note that cables occasionally get cut accidentally by wayward anchors, and Pistorius provided no proof of intentional action.
He added: “Therefore, we have to state, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a hybrid action. And we also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it is sabotage.”
Ari-Jussi Knaapila, CEO of Cinia Oy, the telco that operates C-Lion1, had said on Monday that the damage to its cable had been caused by an “external impact.” It is thought the cable has been entirely severed.
Pistorius’s comments followed a joint statement from the German and Finnish foreign ministries, released on Monday evening, which said the governments were “deeply concerned” about the cutting of the cables.
It said: “The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times.
"Our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital."
Last week, Russian spy ship Yantar had to be escorted out of Irish waters, where it was sailing near subsea cables.
The US has warned of increased Russian activity near such cables, which carry the vast majority of intercontinental Internet traffic. The cuts come as the US approved Ukraine's use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia for the first time.
This week, Sweden, Finland, and Norway released new guidance for citizens on how to survive war.
Both cable cuts failed to cause outages, however, thanks to redundancy. The Lithuanian cable carried about a third of the nation's Internet capacity, but capacity was also carried via other routes. C-Lion1 provides Internet connectivity to Finland, but traffic also flows via other routes through Sweden.
