A communication cable between Sweden and Estonia has been damaged in the Baltic Sea, Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oscar Bolin said on Tuesday.
This was reported by Yle, cited by Interfax-Ukraine.
“We can’t say what damaged the cable at the moment,” Bolin said at a press conference.
According to Bolin, the cable was damaged around the same time last week and in the same area as the Balticconnector gas pipeline and the telecommunications cable between Finland and Estonia. However, Bolin noted, the cable did not break.
Swedish Defense Minister Paul Johnson said at a press conference that “the government is taking the situation seriously and considers this issue important because it is about critical security infrastructure.”
For its part, the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications reported receiving information on October 11 about a decrease in the capacity of the communication cable between Estonia and Sweden. According to the agency, the site of the damage is located in Estonian waters, about 50 km from the Estonian island of Giyumaa in the direction of Sweden.
The cable belongs to a Swedish company, which restored its maximum capacity within a few days, and this did not affect the continuity of communication, the ministry said.
“According to preliminary data, there is no reason to link the failure of the Estonian-Swedish cable to other events. This cable has experienced similar minor failures in the past. It is currently unknown what caused the decrease in its capacity. The owner of the cable is working to repair it, and during this process, in cooperation between Estonia, Finland and Sweden, it will also be investigated what could have been the cause and whether it could be related to malfunctions of the Estonian-Finnish communication cable and gas pipeline,” the agency said.
On October 8, the Finnish gas grid operator Gasgrid Finland and the Estonian gas grid operator Elering reported damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline.
In their opinion, it may take several months to repair the pipeline, until about April next year.
The length of the underwater part of the Balticconnector from the Estonian city of Paldiski to Inkoo in Finland is 77 km. The gas pipeline was launched in 2020.
