The suggestion comes after a 1,000-kilometer-long undersea telecoms cable linking Finland and Germany, and another connecting Sweden to Lithuania were severed last week. A Chinese-flagged ship that departed Russia and sailed through the Baltic Sea is suspected of being involved.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius dubbed it an act of “sabotage.” Moscow, which has stepped up its hybrid warfare campaign in Europe since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, called suggestions that Russia had anything to do with the broken cables “ridiculous.” Beijing has also denied any involvement.
Nine countries — Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, and Poland — border the Baltic Sea. Russian naval fleets are docked in St. Petersburg and the exclave of Kaliningrad.
Sweden’s former defense chief Micael Bydén warned in May that the Kremlin wanted to take control of the strategically important sea, cautioning that it “must not become Putin’s playground where he terrifies NATO members.”