European defense and government officials said a People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged vessel is a prime suspect after two undersea internet cables were severed in a span of hours in mid-November 2024.
The cargo carrier Yi Peng 3 left a Russian port and sailed over both cables in the Baltic Sea about the time they were damaged. The lines connect Denmark and Sweden with Lithuania and Finland with Germany. Ship tracking data showed the vessel stopped and drifted near the cables, in one case for more than an hour, United States-based National Public Radio (NPR) reported.
The breaches occurred in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and the nation is leading an investigation that includes Denmark, Finland, Germany and Lithuania.
More than 95% of the world’s data travels through fiber-optic cables that crisscross the seafloor, the fastest and most reliable way of transmitting information. “Just one of these cables can handle millions of people watching videos or sending messages simultaneously without slowing down,” Robin Chataut, a cybersecurity and computer science professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, wrote for The Conversation news organization.
The global economy depends on these subsea networks and protecting the infrastructure is critical to international security. Under the 1884 International Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables, it is “a punishable offense to break or injure a submarine cable, willfully or by culpable negligence, in such a manner as might interrupt or obstruct telegraphic communication, either wholly or partially.”
The NATO security alliance has warned that Russia could target European communications infrastructure as Moscow continues its unprovoked war against Ukraine. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters that “nobody believes these cables were accidentally cut [in November]. We have to assume without knowing for sure yet that this was an act of sabotage.”
Officials told The Wall Street Journal newspaper that Russia could be responsible for the cable cutting but using a PRC-flagged ship for plausible deniability. Others suggested the PRC could be unaware of the scheme or that the cable damage was accidental.
The PRC regularly conducts aggressive maneuvers in waters closer to its shores — claiming maritime territory within other countries’ EEZs, disrupting oil and gas surveys, and harassing fishing crews and military operations.
However, sabotage in the Baltic Sea “would be a really, really surprising act of provocation, and it’s unheard of,” University of Copenhagen maritime security specialist Christian Bueger told broadcaster France 24.
Beijing admitted that a Hong Kong-flagged container ship damaged two underwater cables and a gas pipeline connecting Estonia and Finland in 2023. Investigators found the damage was caused by an anchor and the PRC said it was accidental.
The ship, registered to a PRC shipping company, reportedly had ownership links to Russia.
“The (still unconfirmed) involvement of another Chinese ship in a second incident would likely cast further doubts on the explanation for the 2023 damage,” The Diplomat magazine reported in late November 2024.
Nations across the globe are increasingly aware of risks to seafloor communication cables. In February 2023, two PRC vessels cut two cables that provide internet to Taiwan’s Matsu Islands.
Russia was linked to severed cables outside Norway’s Svalbard archipelago and Scotland’s Shetland Islands.
Analysts told The Wall Street Journal that Nordic nations were prepared to investigate the November cable damage after previous incidents, which include the 2021 disappearance of an underwater monitoring cable and the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions.
