Swedish police are investigating two suspected cases of sabotage in connection with the ruptures of two data cables in the Baltic Sea. The Swedish Public Prosecutor's Office said in a press release.
The crime scene investigations at the two cables have been completed, it added.
The damage occurred on November 17th on cables running between Sweden and Lithuania and between Finland and Germany. Both locations where the damage occurred are located in the Swedish economic zone in the Baltic Sea. The Swedish police's national operations department is responsible for the further investigation.
Sweden has also established a joint investigation group together with the authorities in Finland and Lithuania to find the cause of the damage.
It is not clear what specifically led the Swedish police to investigate the case as sabotage, but the police already stated last week that they suspected that sabotage had been committed against the data cables.
The same suspicion has been raised in Germany and Finland.
The police in Finland stated on November 20 that they suspected that the data cable running between Finland and Germany was deliberately damaged. And the day before, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that "no one believes that these cables were cut by accident."
The Chinese cargo ship "Yi Peng 3" has been linked to the breaches.
The breaches have thus been registered in places along the route that "Yi Peng 3" has sailed since the ship set sail from a Russian port on the Baltic coast near St. Petersburg.
Ships from authorities in several countries - including Denmark, Sweden and Germany - have recently been near the "Yi Peng 3", which is lying idle in the Kattegat outside Danish territorial waters, but in the Danish economic zone.
This is not the first time that there has been suspicion of sabotage committed against cables or pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
In September 2022, there was a breach in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which was subsequently investigated as sabotage by the police in several countries.
The case of the breaches of the two pipelines has not yet been resolved, but in August it emerged that German police had identified three suspects - including a male Ukrainian diver.
On this basis, a court in Karlsruhe issued a European arrest warrant for the man. There are no reports that the diver or any of the other suspects in the case have been apprehended.
/ritzau/
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