Finnish authorities sai Tuesday new harm to 2 fiber-optic cables connecting Finland and Sweden appears to be unintentional, regardless of a minister earlier elevating suspicions of potential sabotage.
Global Connect mentioned the web cables between Sweden and Finland had been broken in two separate locations in southern Finland. The firm mentioned that 6,000 non-public clients and a few 100 enterprise clients had been affected by the rupture.
Earlier, Finnish Transport and Communications Minister Lulu Ranne posted on X that “authorities are investigating the matter along with the corporate.”
“We are taking the state of affairs critically.”
In a message to the information company AFP, Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin mentioned “sabotage” was suspected.
However, on Tuesday afternoon, Finnish police mentioned “there is no such thing as a cause to suspect any felony exercise” in reference to harm.
Both cables had since been repaired.
Previous breaches increase suspicions of sabotage
This week’s incident follows current breaches of two undersea fiber optic communications cables within the Baltic Sea. In that case, two fiber cables situated greater than 100 nautical miles (about 200 kilometers) aside within the Baltic Sea backside had been severed, elevating suspicions of sabotage.
That rupture occurred on November 17-18 in an space the place a China-flagged vessel had been sighted.
Beijing mentioned final week it was prepared to help within the following probe after Sweden requested for cooperation. Both cables had been restored as of November 29.
The international locations bordering the Baltic Sea include eight NATO nations of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany, plus Russia.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius mentioned he believed the cables had been probably broken in an act of sabotage.
Russia has dismissed claims by European officers that Moscow was concerned as “absurd” and “laughable.”
The November 2024 cable harm befell in the identical maritime area the place the Nord Stream pipelines underwater explosions and consequent gasoline leaks occurred. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pure gasoline pipelines had been rendered inoperable in September 2022, some seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
jsi/ab (Reuters, dpa, AFP, AP)
