An Internet subsea cable between Lithuania and Sweden has been cut, not long after reports of a cut cable that connected Finland and Germany.
The two cables are believed to be within 10 meters of each other. The cause of the cuts is not yet known.
“The cable was cut on Sunday morning, at around 10am," Andrius Šemeškevičius, CTO of Telia, the telco that operates the cable, told the LRT TV Important Hour program, discussing the BCS East-West link cable.
"The systems immediately reported that we had lost the connection. Further investigation and clarification took place, and it turned out that it was damaged."
Speaking about the Finnish cable cut, Cinia CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila said that it was too early to say whether the cut was intentional or simply a wayward anchor, but said it was clear that it was an "external impact."
The German and Finnish foreign ministries said in a joint statement: “We are deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable connecting Finland and Germany in the Baltic Sea. The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times.
"Our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital."
Just last week, Russian spy ship Yantar had to be escorted out of Irish waters, where it was sailing near subsea cables.
The US has warned of increased Russian activity near such cables, which carry the vast majority of intercontinental Internet traffic. The cuts come as the US approved Ukraine's use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia for the first time.
This week, Sweden, Finland, and Norway released new guidance for citizens on how to survive war.
Both cable cuts failed to cause outages, however, thanks to redundancy. The Lithuanian cable carried about a third of the nation's Internet capacity, but capacity was carried via other routes.
