Sweden detained a vessel suspected of damaging a subsea data cable connecting it with Latvia, the third such incident in the Baltic Sea in the past three months.
The Security Service said it’s conducting a preliminary investigation into the crime that is classified as “aggravated sabotage,” according to a statement late on Sunday. The authority also said the incident which happened early that day, may at least partly be directed against Swedish interests.
One of the anchors of bulk carrier Vezhen dragged on the seabed due to strong winds, according to Alexander Kalchev, director of the Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which owns the ship. Speaking at a news conference in Varna, Bulgaria, on Monday, he denied any intentional action by the crew.
“It’s possible that the ship caused this interruption” of the cable, “but by no means can I assume any sabotage or other action by our crew,” Kalchev said. “We’re expecting an inspection of the ship by investigators who should discover the reasons and whether we are the perpetrator, this is yet to be proved.”
The episode is the latest in a spate of similar incidents in the Baltic Sea. In December, an oil tanker linked to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet was suspected of damaging undersea links with a loose anchor. A month earlier, a Chinese ship was implicated in separate incident.
While sabotage has not been established in any of the incidents, numerous policymakers have raised the prospect of intentional, malicious activity.
“There’s too many of them to call them accidents,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said in Brussels.
Last week, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said focusing on the perpetrator and intent is less important than being able to prevent such damage.
“The bottom line is it doesn’t really matter who does it,” Stubb said on Bloomberg TV.
Sweden’s Security Service said it’s taking a number measures under the investigation and is working closely with several other authorities including the coast guard, the armed forces and the police.
In response, Nordic leaders met on Sunday night for dinner at Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s home to discuss the events. Present were Stubb, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
When the cable was breached, “there was a day long effort to clarify which ship has been responsible,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze said in Brussels, adding authorities have made “some progress.”
“There were several ships that were cooperating, one ship that was not cooperating,” she said.
The ship, sailing under the flag of Malta, initially didn’t allow foreign personnel aboard due to the bad weather, Kalchev said. The ship was headed for South America, with a crew from Bulgaria and Myanmar, carrying fertilizers, he said.
Photograph: The Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in Denmark in a similar incident in November 2024. Photo credit: Mikkel Berg Pedersen/AFP/Getty Images
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