Undersea Communications Cables Cut

Two Internet cables between Germany and Finland, and Lithuania and Sweden have both experienced sudden outages. Located in northern Europe, the Baltic Sea is an active commercial shipping route and is ringed by nine countries, including Russia. The affected countries, all members of NATO,  are saying that it is unlikely to be accidental. 

This has happened in the same waterway in which a major gas pipeline and other undersea cables were previously  damaged in mysterious circumstances in 2022. 

Now,  Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has said that the severing of an undersea communications cable between Helsinki and the German port of Rostock is likely to be an act of sabotage.

The telecoms cable which connects Helsinki to the German port of Rostock stopped working on the 18th November, while Finland’s state-controlled cybersecurity and telecoms company Cinia says that Internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland island went out of service at about on Sunday 17th November. 

Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were “deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable” and were investigating “an incident that immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage”.

This latest incident comes at a time of heightened tensions in the region. President Biden has authorised the use of US supplied long range missiles by Ukraine against military targets in Russia. “Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies,” Germany and Finland said.

Cinia has said that a repair vessel had been sent to the scene although did not yet know how long it would take to fix the issue, adding that it typically takes between five and 15 days for submarine cables to be repaired. Meanwhile, a German investigation into the 2022 Nord stream gas pipelines explosions is still underway.

Cinia   |   Barrons   |   BBC   |   Guardian   |    Computing  |   CNN    |   Silicon Republic   |   

Image:  Ideogram

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