Baltic Sea internet cables cut: European officials shout sabotage

CNN
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European officials are eyeing Russia after two submarine internet cables in the Baltic Sea were suddenly cut in an apparent sabotage operation, just weeks after the US warned. Moscow likely to target Critical subsea infrastructure.

A. Cable between Lithuania and Sweden It was disconnected on Sunday, according to Telia Lithuania, the telecommunications company that operates the link. Separately, state-controlled Finnish telecommunications company Cinia said one of the cables connecting Finland and Germany was disrupted on Monday.

While the exact causes of the incidents are still being investigated, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he believed it was most likely sabotage.

“No one believes these cables were accidentally severed,” he told reporters Tuesday morning. Ahead of the ministerial meeting in Brussels, Belgium. “We need to know that this is a hybrid act, without knowing exactly who it came from, and we also need to assume that it is sabotage, without yet knowing who it was done by,” Pistorius said.

His comments came after the foreign ministers of Finland and Germany gave a joint speech. expression On Monday evening, they said they were “deeply concerned” by the disruption of cables between their countries and raised the possibility that the incident could be part of a “hybrid war”.

“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional harm speaks volumes about the volatility of our times. The statement said that a thorough investigation is ongoing. “Our European security is at risk not only because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also because of the hybrid war of malicious actors.” is also under threat.”

European security officials and experts have been warning for months that Russia is waging a hybrid war against the West; The charges stem from a series of random arson attacks, hacks and explosions that have occurred in several European cities in recent months.

These included arson attacks on a bus garage in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Profession Museum in RigaLatvia, a Ukrainian company’s warehouse in London and a shopping mall in Warsaw, Poland.

Numerous hacking attacks and espionage incidents have also been reported in different European countries. At the same time, the European Union accused Russia and Belarus of weaponizing migration by pushing asylum seekers from third countries to their borders.

The extent of the outage caused by damage to the cables is unclear. Accidents damaging subsea cables are rare, but do occur; Therefore, most providers run services in several different ways to avoid power outages.

Cinia said in a statement that services carried out over the C-Lion1 cable connecting Helsinki to Rostock were interrupted, but added that Finland’s international telecommunications connections were routed through more than one connection.

The company said a repair ship was sent to the scene and although it did not yet know how long it would take to fix the problem, it usually takes five to 15 days to repair subsea cables.

Telia Lithuania’s chief technology officer Andrius Šemeškevičius said that the disrupted cable (BCS East-West) handles about a third of Lithuania’s internet capacity, according to Lithuanian media. It was stated that traffic returned to normal after the interruption.