On 17 October, at a joint press conference in Gothenburg, the Swedish ministers for defence and civil protection, the head of the coastguard and the head of the navy announced that a telecommunications cable between Sweden and Estonia had been damaged. The incident occurred earlier this month and coincided with damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and the Elisa submarine telecommunications cable between Estonia and Finland.
Neither gas supplies nor communications were disrupted. However, the operators estimate that repairs will take months. The damage was caused outside Sweden’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. The combination of incidents could be a deliberate act of sabotage. This is a matter of concern for Europe and NATO in a tense international context of energy supply and the entry of Finland and Sweden into the Atlantic Alliance.
Although this case has attracted far less attention than the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, two ships present at the time of the incident have attracted the attention of Finnish investigators.
Two ships present at the time of the incident have attracted the attention of Finnish investigators. The Chinese container ship Newnew Polar Bear and the Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship Sevmorput. According to the AIS system, which tracks maritime traffic, these two ships were sighted at around the same time as the damage to the two communication cables and the gas pipeline.
But other ships, whose identities have not been revealed, are also under suspicion by the Finnish authorities. They did not mention the Russian research vessel “Sibiriakov”, which had apparently taken a close interest in the Baltic link a few days earlier.
Protecting cables and pipelines is extremely difficult. It requires permanent geographical coverage. What’s more, when damage occurs outside a country’s territorial waters – as has been the case in all recent incidents – the legal basis for investigations is difficult to establish.
The decommissioning of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 sent shockwaves around the Baltic. Norway, which had become Europe’s leading gas supplier following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, deployed considerable naval and coastguard resources, as well as industry, with numerous underwater drones to inspect its 8,800 kilometers of pipelines.
Last February, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the creation of a critical submarine infrastructure coordination cell at NATO Headquarters. It has decided to increase its surveillance resources in the Baltic Sea by deploying four minehunters, an Awacs surveillance aircraft, maritime patrol aircraft and drones.
