Germany, Finland warn of ‘hybrid warfare’ as Baltic undersea cables are damaged

(LONDON) — The foreign ministries of Germany and Finland said Monday that they were “deeply concerned” by the severing of an undersea cable connecting the two countries across the Baltic Sea — one of two Baltic Sea connections suddenly damaged in recent days.

Finnish company Cinia reported a “fault situation” with its C-Lion-1 submarine cable on Monday afternoon, saying in a statement that investigation and repair work was underway.

Cinia did not offer any explanation for the interruption to the connection and said that undersea cable repairs generally take between 5 and 15 days. The 730-mile cable has connected Finland to central European communication networks since 2016.

The German Interior Ministry confirmed to ABC News that authorities believe the cable to have been severed by an external force near the Swedish island of Oland.

Berlin and Helsinki said they were “deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable.”

“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” the joint foreign ministries statement continued.

“A thorough investigation is underway. Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies.”

The damage to the C-Lion-1 cable came one day after Telia Lietuva — a Swedish telecoms company in Lithuania — said one of its undersea telecommunications cable linking Lithuania and Sweden across the Baltic Sea sustained damage.

That cable — which intersects with the C-Lion-1 Finnish-German cable — was damaged on Sunday morning, company spokesperson Andrius Semeskevicius told local media.

The damaged cable has been the subject of faults and accidents in the past. But, Semeskevicius told Lithuanian National Radio and Television, “since both are damaged, it is clear that this was not an accidental dropping of one of the ship’s anchors, but something more serious could be going on.”

The cause of the damage to the cables is yet to be established. The interruptions come against a backdrop of concerns over Russian sabotage operations in Europe and elsewhere, prompted by Western support for Ukraine in its defensive war against Moscow.

The Baltic Sea has been the scene of mysterious undersea incidents in recent years, such as the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany in 2022.

The following year, a Chinese container ship — the Newnew Polar Bear — dragged its anchor for more than 100 nautical miles through the Gulf of Finland, damaging an undersea natural gas pipeline and two telecommunications cables. Finnish and Estonian authorities are conducting a joint criminal investigation into the incident.

ABC News’ Aicha El Hammar and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.

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