Second Baltic Sea communications cable damaged
An undersea communications cable between Lithuania and Sweden has been damaged in the Baltic Sea, public broadcaster LRT reported on Nov. 18.
Andrius Šemeškevičius, the chief technology officer of Lithuanian telecommunications company Telia, stated the cable was cut on Nov. 17, around 10 a.m.
“The systems immediately reported that we lost the connection,” LRT quoted Šemeškevičius.
“Further investigation determined that it was damaged.”
The damaged cable is one of the three that connect Lithuania to the internet. While overall data traffic throughput capacity has been reduced, connectivity for Lithuanian users remains stable, he added.
He also told CNN that the disruptions were likely caused by physical damage to the cable itself.
“We can confirm that internet traffic disruptions were not caused by equipment failure but by physical damage to the fiber-optic cable,” Šemeškevičius stated.
Earlier, Finnish authorities reported damage to an undersea cable running through the Baltic Sea between Finland and Germany. The Finnish state data transmission provider, Cinia, reported a "fault" in the C-Lion1 cable, which stretches nearly 1,200 kilometers from Helsinki, Finland, to the German port city of Rostock.
These incidents occurred weeks after the United States warned of increased Russian military activity around key underwater cables in the region. In September, two U.S. officials indicated that Russia was inclined to conduct potential sabotage operations on critical infrastructure in northern Europe.
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