WASHINGTON − Germany said damage to two underwater telecommunications cables linking Germany to Finland and Sweden to Lithuania is “sabotage,” in an incident reminiscent of the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.
The two cables, which run between the countries through the Baltic Sea, went dead on Sunday and Monday. Lithuania said it is looking into the incident and had increased naval patrols in the area.
“Nobody believes that these cables were accidentally cut,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters ahead of a European Union meeting in Brussels on Tuesday. “I also don’t want to believe in versions that these were ship anchors that accidentally caused the damage.”
“We have to conclude, without knowing exactly who did it, that it was a ‘hybrid’ action,” he said. “And we must also assume, without knowing it, of course, that it is sabotage.”
Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans suggested Russia was behind the damage, although he said he did not have specific information.
“We see increasing activity of especially Russia on our seas, aimed at espionage and possibly even sabotage of our vital infrastructure,” he said.
Damage to the cable linking Lithuania and Sweden was “full,” not “partial,” according to a spokesperson for Arelion, the cable’s owner and operator. Cinia, the owner of the cable linking Finland and Germany, said it could not determine what caused the damage until repairs started.
Damage recalls Nord Stream pipeline blasts
It marked the second time in recent years that a German undersea pipeline was sabotaged after three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Germany to Russia exploded in 2022.
While the U.S. and its European allies initially suggested Russia was to blame, investigative reports from The Washington Post and German publication Der Spiegel released more than a year later linked a Ukrainian military colonel with ties to Ukraine’s special operations forces to the attack. According to the reports, five men and a woman aboard a yacht hired by a Ukrainian company in Poland placed explosives on the pipelines.
Ukraine denied the attack and accused Russia, which also denied responsibility and called the pipeline bombing an act of international terrorism.
