RIGA, Latvia (news agencies) — Swedish prosecutors announced Sunday night that they have opened a preliminary investigation into suspected aggravated “sabotage” and ordered the detention of a vessel in the Baltic Sea suspected of damaging an underwater fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland earlier that day.
“Several authorities, including the National Police Operations Department, the Coast Guard and the Armed Forces, are involved in the investigation,” said Mats Ljungqvist, senior prosecutor at the National Security Unit, according to a press release.
The Swedish Coast Guard confirmed to the newspaper Expressen that they were on site near the vessel which the paper identified as the Malta-flagged Vezhen, at anchor near the port of Karlskrona.
“We are directly on site with the seized ship and are taking measures as decided by the prosecutor,” said Mattias Lindholm, spokesperson for the Coast Guard.
According to data from Vesselfinder, the vessel departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga several days earlier and was navigating between Gotland and Latvia at the time the damage was suspected of having occurred.
Latvia’s state-run radio and TV center said Sunday that it recorded disruptions in data transmission on the cable running from the town of Ventspils to the Swedish island of Gotland, and concluded there was a rupture.
The media organization said it was able to operate using other data transmission routes, while it was taking steps to have the cable repaired.
“At the moment, there is reason to believe that the cable is significantly damaged and that the damage is caused by external influences,” Vineta Sprugaine, head of corporate communications at LVRTC, was quoted as saying by the LSM state broadcaster.
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