11 Baltic Sea cables were damaged in 15 months. What happens here? – My country

Through its strong camera, the French marine surveillance plane was wandering in the Balati Sea.

ATLANTIKUE 2 long -term ATLANTIQUE NATO Then her high-tech outlook was transferred to another goal, and after that, after more than five hours in a patrol, the plane sensors group took out the largest part of the Baltic-from Germany in the west to Estonia in the northeast, on the border with Russia.

Just attending the journey in the sky over the strategic sea last week, along with the military ships that carry out water on the water, also send an unambiguous message: the NATO coalition collides with its caution against the suspected attempts to sabotage the energy cables and underwater data. Crisscross Baltic, motivated by an increased catalog of accidents.

“We will do everything we can to make sure that we are fighting, and that we are able to see what is happening and then take the following steps to make sure that this does not happen again. It is called the “Baltic Sea”, to protect underwater infrastructure of the economic luxury of the Baltic countries.

Power cables, communications and gas pipelines link the nine countries that contain beaches on the Baltic, which is almost a relatively shallow sea. There are some examples of the 152 km Baltic pipeline carrying gas between Finland and Estonia, the high-voltage Baltic cable that connects the energy networks in Sweden and Germany, and C-Lion1 telecom cables, which has an area of ​​1173 km.

The pipes and cables below the sea surface help energy economies, keeping homes warm and connecting billions of people. More than 1.3 million kilometers of optical cables fiber-more than sufficient to expand to the moon, back-ocean and seas in the world, according to gas photography, which track and plan vital communication networks. Cables are usually the width of the garden hose. But 97 percent of the world’s communications, including trillion dollars in financial transactions, pass through it every day.

“In the past two months alone, we have seen damage to a cable linking Lithuania and Sweden, another linking Germany and Finland, and recently, a number of cables that link Estonia and Finland. Investigations in all these cases are still ongoing. Rot said on January 14:” There is a reason for great concern. “

At least 11 Baltic cables since October 2023-the latter being a cable of optical fiber connecting Latvia and Swedish island, which has been torn on Sunday. Although cable operators note that damage under the surface of the sea cables is common, the frequency of accidents and their concentration of doubts in the Baltic exceeds that the damage may be deliberate.

There are also fears that Russia can target cables as part of a broader campaign of the so -called “hybrid war” to destabilize European countries that help Ukraine to defend themselves against the comprehensive invasion of Moscow since 2022.

Without the blaming specifically Russia, Root said: “The hybrid means sabotage. The hybrid means electronic attacks. The hybrid sometimes means even assassination attacks and attempts, and in this case, this means hitting our infrastructure under our sea surface.”

The Finnish police suspect that the eagle, an oil tanker, has harmed power cables 2, and other communications cables linking Finland and Estonia on December 25, 2024, are part of the “shadow fleet” in Moscow used to avoid warrants associated with the war on Russian oil exports.

The Finnish authorities seized the carrier shortly after leaving Russian port and seemed to have cut the cables by pulling its anchor. The Finnish investigators claim that the ship has left an anchor of approximately 100 km on the sea floor.

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He told many Western intelligence officials, speaking on the condition that his identity was not disclosed due to the sensitive nature of their work, to Associated Press that the recent damage was probably accidental, and it seems that it caused the ships that were poorly maintained and its crew badly.

A senior intelligence official told AP that ship records and mechanical failure with ships were “among the” multiple indicators “that indicate away from the Russian sabotage. The official said that the Russian cables were also cut. Another Western official said, also talking about an unknown to discuss intelligence matters , Russia has sent a bowl to collect the intelligence to a single cable rupture site to investigate the damage.

The Washington Post has first reported the emerging consensus between US and European security services, which are likely to have caused marine accidents into recent damage.

In November 2024, the European Cables Association, which represents the owners of cables and operators, noticed that the errors were reported on the Baltic Sea link, on average, damaging a cable below the sea somewhere in the world every three days. In the waters of northern Europe, the main causes of damage are hunting commercial fish or vessels.

In the rupture of the optical fiber cable on Sunday linking Latvia and Sweden, the Swedish authorities detained the Maltese vehicle heading to South America with a shipment of fertilizers.

Navibulgar, a Bulgarian company that owns Vezhen, said that any damage was unintended and that the ship’s crew was discovered while moving into the very bad weather as its left anchor seemed to have dragged on the sea floor.

The coalition is deploying warships, naval aircraft, and marine drones for the task of providing “monitoring and deterrence”.

On a French naval monitoring trip, the 14 -member crossed crew ships that they discovered from the air against the ship lists that were ordered to see.

“If we see some suspicious activities of ships in the sea – for example, ships at a very low speed or in a marina in a situation should not be at this time – so this is something we can see,” the trips commander said. Lieutenant Alban, who was blocked by the French military for security reasons.

“We can take a very closer look with our sensors to see what is happening.”

I informed the burrows from London. Ap Jill Lawles journalists in London, David Kleber in Washington and Vicelin Toskov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this report.