Subsea Cable Cuts in the Baltic Sea Raise Sabotage, Security Concerns Across Region

Geopolitical tensions have risen across Northern Europe as two major fiber optic subsea cables serving Sweden, Germany, Lithuania, and Finland through the Baltic Sea were cut in what some fear is an act of sabotage by bad actors, with eyes toward Russia.

Europe's security is threatened by Russia's war against Ukraine and "hybrid warfare by malicious actors," a joint statement from affected parties said, without naming the actors, according to a Bloomberg report.

"Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies," Germany and Finland said. If sabotage by bad actors is the cause, the cuts this week and year represent a new form of waging hostilities in a world with many geopolitical hot areas.

The Year of Big Subsea Cable Cuts?

The Baltic Sea is a commercial shipping route. Nine countries, including Russia, ring the sea. "It is absolutely central that it is clarified why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working," Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Sweden's minister of civil defense, told a Swedish public broadcaster, according to Bloomberg. This isn't the first major concern for the region, as a series of underwater explosions rendered parts of the Nord Stream pipeline for gas inactive in 2022. The pipelines connect Europe and Russia.

This year alone has seen three cables cut off Yemen in the Red Sea that have taken many months to repair, followed by subsea cable cuts off Western Africa and in the South China Sea – all under suspicious circumstances, helping elevate concerns of intentional sabotage, not typical causes of anchor dragging and fishing operations.

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