A view of the anchor of the Chinese ship, the bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, in the sea of Kattegat, near the City of Grenaa in Jutland, Denmark on November 20, 2024. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Sweden has formally asked China to cooperate in explaining the recent rupture of two data cables on the Baltic Seabed in an area where a China-flagged vessel had been sighted, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Thursday (November 28, 2024).

The two cables, one running from Finland to Germany and the other from Lithuania to Sweden, were both damaged in Swedish waters last week, in an area where the Yi Peng 3, a China-flagged bulk carrier, was seen.

The Yi Peng 3 has been moored in international waters between Sweden and Denmark. Mr. Kristersson told a news conference in the town of Harpsund that Sweden would like the vessel to move to its own waters to allow for an inspection within the ongoing international investigation.

“As I had said before, Sweden has expressed our desire for the ship to move to Swedish waters and we are in contact with China from Sweden,” Mr. Kristersson said. “Today I can also tell you that in addition to that Sweden has also sent a formal request to China to cooperate with Swedish authorities in order to create clarity on what has happened.” He was speaking after a security meeting of government leaders of the Baltic Sea region.

In the same news conference, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed “full solidarity and full support” and trust in Sweden’s reliability as it acts in the interest of all countries in the Baltic region.

Finnish, Swedish and German authorities have launched investigations into the rupture of the two cables. Germany’s defence minister said that the damage appeared to have been caused by sabotage, though there is no proof at present.

Chinese authorities in Beijing said earlier this month they had no information about the ship, but that China was ready to “maintain communication” with relevant parties.

They called for the vessel’s rights to normal navigation to be protected.

Last year Sweden announced a cable running from its coast under the Baltic Sea to Estonia had been “deliberately” ruptured.

This picture taken on October 12, 2015 shows the C-Lion1 submarine telecommunications cable being laid to the bottom Baltic Sea from the military base island Santahamina in Helsinki, Finland. Germany and Finland said November 18, 2024 they were “deeply concerned” that an undersea telecommunications cable linking the countries had been severed and opened a probe, at a time of high tensions with Russia.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A Swedish government minister said Tuesday (November 19, 2024) that the country was investigating a damaged telecommunications undersea cable linking Lithuania and Sweden, a day after the announcement that a cable linking Finland and Germany was cut in what Berlin considers “sabotage”.

Minister for Civil Defence Carl-Oskar Bohlin told AFP in a written statement that it was “crucial to clarify why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working”.

Bohlin added that “relevant Swedish authorities are investigating the events”.

The “Arelion” submarine cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania has been damaged since Sunday morning, a spokesman for the Lithuanian branch of the operator Telia said Tuesday.

Internet traffic has been redirected to other international links, Audrius Stasiulaitis said.

“We can confirm that the interruption to internet traffic was not caused by an equipment fault but by material damage to the fibre optic cable,” he said.

He added that customers were at this time not being affected by the outage.

On Monday, Finnish operator Cinia reported that a cable connecting Helsinki and the German port of Rostock had been cut for unknown reasons.

Germany and Finland subsequently said they had launched a probe into the damage, warning of the threat of “hybrid warfare”.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius also said Tuesday that the severing of cables between Finland and Germany and from Sweden to Lithuania was a “clear sign that something is going on”.

“Nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed,” Pistorius said on the sidelines of a meeting of EU ministers in Brussels.

“We have to say, without knowing exactly who it came from, that this is a hybrid action. We also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it was sabotage,” he said.