Latvia-Sweden Submarine Cable Damaged in Baltic Sea
26 January, 2025 Illustrative photo of a submarine communications cable. Source: BBC. On the morning of January 26, another submarine communication cable connecting Latvia and Sweden was damaged in the Baltic Sea.
The Latvian State Broadcasting Center (LVRTC), which owned the cable, reported on this. The cable ran in the area between the coastal Latvian city of Ventspils and the Swedish city of Farosund, which is located on the island of Gotland. Based on its current findings, the LVRTC assumes that the cable was significantly damaged due to external factors.
The Center details that criminal proceedings have already been initiated.
Illustrative photo of the work with the submarine cable. Source: Fluctus.
Given that the cable runs at a depth of more than 50 meters, the exact nature of the damage will be determined only after the repair work begins. There are heavy traffic shipping routes between Latvia and the island of Gotland, so it is possible that the old Russian "scheme" of cutting communications with an anchor could have been used to damage this cable.
Maritime traffic between Latvia and the island of Gotland.
Source: www.vesselfinder.com.
Militarnyi previously reported that NATO has announced the launch of a new operation, Baltic Sentinel, to protect the region's maritime infrastructure.
Sabotage in the Baltic Sea
On December 26, it was reported that Finland boarded and detained the Eagle S tanker suspected of damaging the cable. The Finnish Border Guard intercepted the tanker after the Estlink 2 submarine electric cable was damaged in the Gulf of Finland on December 25. The vessel, which was transporting oil from Russia to Egypt, is suspected of deliberately cutting communications between the two countries, as it was passing close to them at the time of the incident.
Law enforcement officers then discovered that one of the anchors on the ship had been cut, which appears to have been used to sever the cable.
The anchor of the Eagle S on the Swedish Navy ship Belos. Source: Yle.
According to the Marinetraffic monitoring service, which tracks ship movements using transponder signals, the Eagle S was heading to Egypt and clearly slowed down while passing the area above the cable. In November, the Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was seen in a similar incident when it passed through a data cable between Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Lithuania around the time they were severed.
The Wall Street Journal later reported, citing anonymous sources associated with the investigation, that it was Russian intelligence that ordered the ship's captain to damage the cables with an anchor.