A major submarine communications cable running between Finland and Germany has been broken, Finnish media reports. The break was discovered early Monday morning, and a repair ship is reportedly on its way from Calais, France, to the breakage point. The break is located about mid-point, in Sweden’s economic zone, south of the island of Öland.
A press release from state-owned communications company Cinia said that the cause of the break, which is affecting international communications, was not known but was under investigation. The company had no information about potential sabotage, but company CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila said outages like this “do not occur in these waters without external impact.” No seismological observations have been made that could point to an underwater explosion, Yle said.
The double-armored cable has two steel reinforcements protecting the communications cables inside. Each year, about 200 submarine cable breaks happen worldwide. Cinia suspects it has been completely broken, as all fiber connections have been cut, Knaapila said in a press conference.
Finnish National Cyber Security Center Traficom communications chief Samuli Bergström said disruptions can occur from time to time, and there may be various reasons for them, such as exposure to weather and damage caused by maritime activities. The main cause of cable breaks is human activity, like fishing or anchoring.
Cybersecurity professor Tapio Frantti told the state broadcaster that intentional sabotage is more likely than an accident, based on the information he’s received from the media. “It raises suspicions when a cable breaks, prompting questions about why it happened. Quickly, attention turns to who might have a motive to do such a thing.”
Frantti said one suspect is Russia. “They even believe that they have special rights to do these kinds of things. The motive for sabotage is generally that it is done simply because it can be done.”
While the cable break takes quite a bit of communications capacity off the table, Finland has other connections, among them, through Estonia and Sweden, and most internet users are unlikely to notice, the professor said but pointed out that if the cable has been damaged intentionally, that is cause for concern.
Commissioned in 2016, the C-Lion1, which runs from Helsinki to Rostock, is the only Finnish submarine cable with a direct connection to Central Europe and is owned by the Finnish government together with a pension insurance company.
