Latvia Investigates New Cable Damage Incident in the Baltic
Latvian authorities confirmed they are investigating damage to a subsea optical cable that happened at the end of last week in the Baltic. The authorities suspect a vessel might have been involved.
Countries along the Baltic, along with NATO, have remained on high after for more than a year after possible sabotage efforts by vessels sailing in the Baltic. After several incidents of anchor dragging and damage to cables were confirmed, patrols have been increased. Latvia launched its investigation after a similar incident last week in the Estonian EEZ led to Finland detaining a vessel.
Latvia’s Prime Minister Evika Silina announced the latest investigation, which began after a privately-owned company reported an outage on one of its cables in the Latvian EEZ. The police confirmed that they were notified of an outage on Friday, January 2. The cable located near the Latvian port of Liepaja, reportedly, connects to Sventoji, Lithuania.
Latvian police boarded an unidentified vessel on Sunday and began interviewing the crew and inspecting the ship. The reports said Latvia’s monitoring operations had identified that the vessel first moved across an inactive cable and then changed course to move over the now-damaged optical cable. The Ship had proceeded into Liepaja, where it remains docked.
After interviewing the crew and reviewing information, the police said on Monday that they had no indications of a connection between the specific ship and the damage to the optical cable. The crew was cooperating with the investigation, and according to media reports, neither the crew nor the ship has been detained.
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The Latvian police said the investigation into the cause of the cable damage remains underway. Media reports said that two other vessels had also been identified in the area of the cable, and those ships were now also docked in Latvia.
Friday’s incident follows reports on December 31 that two cables were damaged that run between Estonia and Finland. Estonian officials said in prior days, four other cables were also damaged, but in those cases, they suspected strong winter weather that had crossed the region in late December.