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This weekend, Swedish telecoms giant Arelion has confirmed that its BCS East submarine cable, connecting Latvia and Lithuania, was damaged on Friday.
The damage appears to have been caused by a ship passing overhead a few kilometres from the cable’s landing station in Liepāja, Latvia. The exact location and extent of the damage is still being identified.
Whether the damage was caused by accident or intentionally remains to be determined. According to reports, information analysed by the Latvian armed forces shows the ship in question initially sailing over an inactive cable before changing course and heading towards the BCS East cable, which was subsequently impacted.
“I am in contact with the crisis management centre and the responsible authorities. The police have started an investigation, and the clarification of the circumstances continues,” Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said in a press conference on Sunday.
“We cannot speculate on the reasons yet. After conducting analysis and digital measurements, the company does not rule out any version at this time,” said Arvis Zile, head of the crisis management centre.
The ship being investigated has since docked at Liepāja and was boarded by police and the Latvian coast guard on Sunday evening. It is not currently being detained, and its crew are cooperating with the investigation.
Latvian users were not impacted by the incident, with traffic successfully redirected to other routes.
Repairs to the cable will be completed “within the next week or two”, according to Arelion spokesperson Martin Sjogren.
The Baltic Sea has become something of a hotbed for submarine cable damage in recent years, with numerus high profile cable cuts, including Arelion’s own BCS East-West Interlink cable, connecting Lithuania to the Swedish island of Gotland, in November 2024.
Given the geopolitical tensions between the Baltic states and Russia since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the security of these critical cables is becoming an increasingly hot topic, both for subsea cable operators and politicians. However, it should be noted that deliberate sabotage of submarine cables is rarely proven while accidental damage is commonplace around the world.
Submarine cable security is becoming an international priority. Join the experts in discussion at the inaugural Subsea Security Summit
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