Finnish Prime Minister ‘does not draw any conclusions’ about damaged telecom cables | Yle news

On By Pranco

Two telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged on Monday, with some suspecting the cause was sabotage.

Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, wearing a dark suit and tie, speaks to media reporters while standing at a raised table topped with microphones.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) speaks to reporters during a press conference at Aalto University in Espoo on Tuesday. Image: Vesa Moilanen / Lehtikuva

The Finnish National Investigation Agency (NBI) announced on Tuesday that it has opened an investigation into the cause of damage to a telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea.

The C-Lion1 submarine telecom cable was damaged early Monday morning.

Swedish police are also investigating what caused the damage to another telecom cable running between Sweden and Lithuania, which emerged in the Baltic Sea on the same day.

Finnish and Swedish authorities are setting up a joint investigation team to investigate the incidents, the head of the NBI’s investigation department said. Timo Kilpeläinen.

On Tuesday morning, the German Defense Minister said Boris Pistorius told Reuters news agency that he suspected the damage had been caused by sabotage. The companies that own the cables have said it would be virtually impossible to damage them without some external force.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo However, (NCP) said on Tuesday that it is not yet time to draw conclusions.

“It is not yet possible to say whether it was sabotage. That’s why I’m not jumping to conclusions yet,” he told reporters at Aalto University in Espoo.

Map showing the cable between Rostock, Hanko and Helsinki.

Image: Ruuti Kotkanoja / Yle

According to Orpo, a more detailed assessment of the situation will be made after authorities investigate.

Orpo said he has discussed the matter with the German chancellor Olaf ScholzSwedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal.

The Finnish Prime Minister noted that states in the Baltic Sea region have prepared ways to protect their critical infrastructure. In October 2023, a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, the so-called Baltic Connector, was damaged after being hit by a anchor of a Chinese cargo ship.

It is possible that the damage Monday was accidentally caused by an anchor or fishing gear, but some experts have suggested that scenario is unlikely.

News channel CNN reported this in September American authorities had warned of the risk that Russia would begin sabotaging submarine cables of the United States and its allies.

Missing ship beacons

On Sunday, hours before the cables were damaged, the navigation beacon transmitters of at least four ships in the area were periodically disabled, the Marine Traffic website said.

The beacon signal of one of those ships: the Chinese-flagged cargo ship Yi Peng 3 – disappeared all Sunday evening until around 1am on Monday morning, while sailing near the cable.

The cable is owned by the Finnish company Cinia, which has a majority stake in the state.

Cinia’s CEO said this at a press conference on Tuesday Ari-Jussi Knaapila said transmissions on the cable were disrupted at 4:04 a.m. Monday and 11 seconds later the connection was completely disconnected.

The CEO said a repair ship will arrive at the site of the damaged cable on Sunday. He said the repairs will take a few days, but the duration of the effort will depend on weather and wind conditions.

Portrait of a man with gray hair and dark-rimmed glasses looking into the camera.

File photo of Cinia’s CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila. Image: Patrik Molander / Yle

According to Knaapila, the area where the Sweden-Lithuanian telecom cable was damaged was tens of nautical miles away from the damaged section of the C-Lion1 cable.

He said that because of the distance, the damage to each of the cables could not have been caused by one incident or action. He noted that Cinia was informed of the cable damage between Sweden and Lithuania just after noon on Monday.

On Tuesday, the Finnish Defense Minister said Antti Häkkänen said he had briefly discussed the issue of cable damage at a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels, including with the defense ministers of Sweden and Germany.

However, Häkkänen did not speculate on which ship might be responsible for the damage, nor on what was known about its activities in the area.

“The investigation is still ongoing. We now need to find out who exactly was (at the site of the damaged cable),” he said at a news conference.