Mysterious damage to Baltic Sea internet cable raises questions about security
Key underwater internet link between Finland and Germany stops working near Swedish waters. Second cable gets damaged while repair-ship heads to check what happened to the first one
A major internet cable connecting Finland to Germany stopped working early monday morning near the Swedish island of Gotland. Later that day another cable (running alongside gas pipes and power lines) also got damaged — its almost 730-mile length making repairs extra-hard
The state-run Finnish company Ari-Jussi Knaapila from Cinia sent out repair-ships to check whats going on; while saying breaks dont just happen by themselves in these waters. The double-armoured steel-cased cables might have been hit by a trawler or ships emergency-anchor
At the moment‚ there is no way to assess the cause of the cable break‚ but such breaks without external impact do not happen in these waters
The timing raises eye-brows as just 2 months ago NATO warned about:
- Russian secret submarine unit for undersea sabotage
- Former president Medvedev calling cables fair targets
- Growing risks in Baltic waters after Finland joined NATO
Similar events happened before — like when:
- Nord Stream gas pipeline got blown up last year
- Chinese cargo ship damaged Finnish-Estonian gas line with its anchor (which some doubt was an accident)
Finnish officials say internet users wont notice problems because other cables exist through different routes; but Helsinki just released new crisis-rules about what to do if communications get cut off
