A second vessel suspected of damaging an undersea data cable connecting Sweden and Latvia has been detained, this time by police in Norway. The Silver Dania has an entirely Russian crew.
A second vessel suspected of damaging an undersea data cable connecting Sweden and Latvia has been detained, this time by police in Norway. The Silver Dania has an entirely Russian crew.
Police and border guards detained the Norwegian-registered ship Silver Dania on January 30, sailing between the Russian ports of St. Petersburg and Murmansk, Bloomberg reported. The ship was taken to the port of Tromsø in northern Norway after Latvia requested legal assistance.
The crew, which consists entirely of Russians, and the shipping company «are cooperating with the Norwegian authorities and are participating voluntarily. Police are currently on board the vessel to conduct a search, question and verify leads,» the police said.
On the morning of January 26, an underwater fiber optic cable was damaged in the Ventspils-Gotland (Forosund) section of the Baltic Sea. Swedish authorities have launched an investigation and detained the vessel Vezhen, which is suspected of involvement in the sabotage. The owner of the vessel denies any deliberate actions by the crew, claiming that one of the anchors was dragged to the seabed by strong winds.
According to Vesselfinder, the ship had left the Russian port of Ust-Luga a few days earlier and was sailing between Gotland and Latvia at the time the damage was suspected.
A lawyer representing the interests of the owners of the seized vessel has filed documents with the Stockholm court stating that there are no legal grounds for the detention of the Vezhen vessel, local media reports.
Recall that in mid-January, NATO announced the launch of the Baltic Sentinel mission to monitor the security of infrastructure in the Baltics. In the past two months alone, several submarine cables between Lithuania and Sweden, Germany and Finland, and Estonia and Finland have been damaged. However, American and European intelligence agencies believe that the ruptures of submarine cables in the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland were caused by maritime accidents, and not by Russian sabotage.
dev.ua contacted Professor and Chief Advisor on Scientific and Technical Policy of Ukrtelecom, Viktor Katko, who is almost the only specialist in Ukraine specializing in the topic of submarine cables and has been studying them for over 30 years. He spoke about the strength of such infrastructure, possible negative scenarios in the event of its serious damage, and how Ukraine can develop an underwater network after the end of the war.
