On Monday, the Baltic Sea communications cable between Helsinki and Rostock was damaged, a senior official at the state-owned fiber optic network provider reported. Communication failures were recorded in the morning.
The cable was damaged midway along its length east of the south coast of Oland. This event did not affect data transmission and service provision – the main domestic telecommunications operator assured.
See: Russia accused of hypocrisy in Nord Stream incident. “Disinformation distracts”
“At this point, we do not believe there was any sabotage, but the impact may have likely damaged the cables, so we cannot rule out the possibility of a deliberate act,” a senior official said.
Baltic Sea. Communication cable damage
The cable is the only direct connection of its kind between Finland and Central Europe, running parallel to other critical infrastructure such as gas pipelines and power cables, I read on the lrt.lt website .
・The cause is currently under investigation. Interruptions can occur from time to time and can have several causes, including sensitive weather conditions or shipping damage. The key is to detect problems and take corrective action, Samuli Bergström, director of the Traficom Cyber Security Center, said in an interview with Finnish broadcaster Ale.
See also: Signal interference in the Baltic Sea. Finland refers to Russia
This failure caused serious concern in Germany and Finland. A joint statement by the two foreign ministers stressed that “our European security is at risk not only as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, but also as a result of hybrid warfare waged by malign actors.”
“The cable break was not an accident, but the result of a deliberate act,” Tapio Frantti, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Jyväskylä, said on behalf of Ale. As he emphasized, in such a situation the question arises as to who could have the motivation to do such a thing. In his opinion, Russia may be such a country. – They think they have a special right to do such things – he said.
Initial estimates are that repairs will take several to several days. A repair ship arrives from France.
Baltic Sea. Damaged cable between Lithuania and Sweden
On the same day, Telia's technical director Andrius Šemeshkevicius announced that communication cables between Lithuania and Sweden were also damaged.
– On Sunday morning, around 10:00, the cable was cut. The system immediately reported a loss of connectivity. After further investigation and clarification, it was determined that the cable was damaged, Shemeshkevicius said on LRT TV's Important Hours program.
Internet bandwidth has been reduced by a third. However, the connection was restored.
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