Sweden Seizes Ship Suspected of Sabotage in Baltic Sea
(Bloomberg) -- Sweden detained a vessel suspected of damaging a subsea data cable connecting it with Latvia, the third such incident in the Baltic Sea in the past three months.
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The Security Service said it’s conducting a preliminary investigation into the crime that is classified as “aggravated sabotage,” according to a statement late on Sunday. The authority also said the incident which happened early that day, may at least partly be directed against Swedish interests.
One of the anchors of bulk carrier Vezhen dragged on the seabed due to strong winds, according to Alexander Kalchev, director of the Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which owns the ship. Speaking at a news conference in Varna, Bulgaria, on Monday, he denied any intentional action by the crew.
“It’s possible that the ship caused this interruption” of the cable, “but by no means can I assume any sabotage or other action by our crew,” Kalchev said. “We’re expecting an inspection of the ship by investigators who should discover the reasons and whether we are the perpetrator, this is yet to be proved.”
The episode is the latest in a spate of similar incidents in the Baltic Sea. In December, an oil tanker linked to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet was suspected of damaging undersea links with a loose anchor. A month earlier, a Chinese ship was implicated in separate incident.
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While sabotage has not been established in any of the incidents, numerous policymakers have raised the prospect of intentional, malicious activity.
“There’s too many of them to call them accidents,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said in Brussels. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock echoed his words.
“More damaged cables, this can’t all be a coincidence,” she said. “Again and again jammed GPS signals, critical infrastructure that is being spied on with drones. We are working together even more with the European Union and NATO to recognize the dangers and repel them.”
Last week, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said focusing on the perpetrator and intent is less important than being able to prevent such damage.
“The bottom line is it doesn’t really matter who does it,” Stubb said on Bloomberg TV.
Sweden’s Security Service said it’s taking a number measures under the investigation and is working closely with several other authorities including the coast guard, the armed forces and the police. The Scandinavian country’s authorities have been onboard the vessel since Sunday evening, the coast guard said.
In response, Nordic leaders met on Sunday night for dinner at Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s home to discuss the events. Present were Stubb, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
The ship, sailing under the flag of Malta, initially didn’t allow its crew to go out on the deck during the night to check on its anchor due to the bad weather, Kalchev said by phone. The ship was headed for South America, with a crew from Bulgaria and Myanmar, carrying fertilizers, he said.
Since the December damage to a key power link between Finland and Estonia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization increased its military presence in the sea in an operation called the Baltic Sentry. Frigates, maritime patrol aircraft and a small fleet of naval drones will seek to protect critical undersea infrastructure and “respond if required,” the alliance said on Jan. 14.
The recurring incidents may have wider implications with undersea infrastructure in the North Sea also vulnerable, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned.
Key underwater assets are being destroyed “through novel methods using ships registered in tax havens and the law of the sea seems to be inadequate to deal with it,” he said, adding that “this is clearly an increasingly important part of the hybrid assault on the west by hostile agents and we should draw conclusions.”
--With assistance from Milda Seputyte, Aaron Eglitis, Thomas Hall, Christian Wienberg and Andrea Palasciano.
(Updates with comments from Polish foreign minister from 15th paragraph)
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