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Norway has detained another vessel on suspicion of cable cutting.

Норвегия задержала новое судно по подозрению в повреждении кабеля.

When the cable was damaged, the "Silver Dania," which was traveling the route from St. Petersburg to Murmansk, was nearby. The police are investigating its potential involvement in the incident. The detention was carried out at the insistence of the Latvian authorities.

The break in the fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden occurred on January 26. The cable, located at a depth of about 50 meters, belongs to the state joint-stock company "Latvian State Radio and Television Centre." The data transmission monitoring system detected a failure in the section connecting the Latvian port of Ventspils and the Swedish island of Gotland. Latvian authorities reported suspicions that the cable was damaged due to "external influence."

Earlier, the Swedish police detained another vessel that was in the same region at that time — the bulk carrier "Vezhen," which is registered in Malta and is part of the fleet of the Bulgarian company Navigation Maritime Bulgare.

The bulk carrier was en route from the Russian port of Ust-Luga to Latin America with a cargo of fertilizers. It is currently anchored at the Swedish port of Karlskrona. The head of the Bulgarian company, Alexander Kalchev, issued a statement on Monday categorically rejecting the possibility of intentional sabotage by the crew of the "Vezhen," but mentioned that under very poor weather conditions, the anchor could have fallen overboard and damaged the cable laid along the seabed.

  • In recent months, two telecommunications and energy cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea (not including the latest incident). The tanker "Eagle S," which flies the flag of the Cook Islands and, according to several reports, is part of Russia's "shadow fleet," which Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions on its oil exports, is currently under arrest in Finland. It is suspected that the anchor of this vessel severed the Estlink 2 cable, which connects Estonia and Finland. Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed that the cable break was likely sabotage orchestrated by Russia.
  • On January 19, The Washington Post wrote, citing "high-ranking officials from the US and EU countries," that representatives from three unnamed countries involved in the investigations reported that the intelligence community is gradually concluding that the damage to the cables by the anchors of commercial vessels was not the result of deliberate actions directed by Moscow. On the contrary, the available evidence at this point allegedly suggests that the cables were damaged due to the inexperience of the crews of poorly maintained ships.


News release from Radio Svoboda: