Swedish authorities investigate sabotage of underwater cable, detain vessel
Date
1/28/2025 4:34:07 AM
(MENAFN) Swedish prosecutors announced on Sunday night that they have opened a preliminary investigation into suspected aggravated sabotage related to damage inflicted on an underwater fiber optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland. The investigation was launched after a vessel, identified as the Malta-flagged Vezhen, was detained in the Baltic Sea earlier that day. Several authorities, including the National Police Operations Department, the Coast Guard, and the Armed Forces, are involved in the ongoing investigation, according to Mats Ljungqvist, a senior prosecutor at the National Security Unit.
The Swedish Coast Guard confirmed to the newspaper Expressen that they were on site near the detained vessel, which was anchored near the port of Karlskrona. Mattias Lindholm, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard, stated that they were taking necessary actions as instructed by the prosecutor. The Vezhen, which departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga several days earlier, was navigating between Gotland and Latvia when the damage to the cable was suspected to have occurred.
According to data from Vesselfinder, the vessel was in the area when the rupture was detected. Latvia's state-run radio and TV center reported on Sunday that it had recorded disruptions in data transmission along the cable running from the Latvian town of Ventspils to Gotland. The center concluded that the cable had been severed.
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