Latvia reports damaged submarine cable

Another submarine cable has been damaged in the Baltic Sea, with the Latvian government stating the impact is expected to be minor.

A fiber optic cable operated by a private company was damaged near the port city of Liepaja, Prime Minister Evika Silina announced via the X microblogging service. "The incident has no impact on users of communication services in Latvia." The cable runs from Liepaja to Šventoji in Lithuania.

According to the statements, the State Police are investigating the case, which occurred on January 2nd. The State Police and Coast Guard had already searched a ship yesterday suspected of causing the damage. However, the suspicion was not confirmed, the police announced today.

Cable damaged off Finland

This is the second submarine cable to be damaged in the Baltic Sea within a few days; also last week, a telecommunications cable was damaged in the Gulf of Finland. The cable, belonging to the Finnish company Elisa, connects the Finnish capital Helsinki with the Estonian capital Tallinn. Here too, no connection problems are reported.

Finnish authorities quickly identified a ship that had dragged its anchor and detained it. On New Year's Day, members of a special police unit and the border guard agency rappelled from helicopters onto the ship. The officers interrogated the crew, arrested two members, and imposed an exit ban on two others. The ship was en route from Russia to Israel.

Attacks on Baltic Sea underwater infrastructure

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there have been repeated incidents involving underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. Last winter, as many as five power and telecommunications submarine cables were damaged in Finnish waters, presumably by ships of the Russian shadow fleet.

The most spectacular incident was the blowing up of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September 2022. Investigators now assume that the act was carried out by Ukrainians.

(wpl)