Sweden has announced that it has sent a formal request to China for cooperation over suspected sabotage of two submarine cables in the Baltic Sea.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Thursday that Swedish authorities are seeking “clarification” from China about what happened last week to two fiber-optic cables connecting Finland and Germany and Sweden and Lithuania.
“Today I can tell you that we have sent a further formal request to cooperate with the Swedish authorities to clarify what happened,” he told a news conference.
“We expect China to choose to cooperate as we request.”
This is because the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 sailed on the cable at about the same time as the cable was cut, and has been anchored in the Kattegat Strait between Sweden and Denmark since November 19th, and has been in the same area. It comes amid speculation that multiple vessels including Danish navy.
Sweden, which is leading the investigation, has refused to comment on the claims, and China's Foreign Ministry has denied any responsibility.
of The Wall Street Journal reported Investigators suspect the Chinese ship's crew dragged the anchor more than 100 miles along the ocean floor last week, intentionally cutting the cable.
Swedish police and prosecutors declined to comment on the allegations, saying they had nothing to add to Wednesday's statement announcing that crime scene investigations at the two utilities had been completed and analysis was continuing.
The Swedish Navy and Coast Guard also declined to comment.
The absence of seismic signals indicating an explosion, as in the case of the Nord Stream and Baltic Connector pipelines, could support the theory that the damage was caused by the anchor, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty said. said Norsaal, Norway's national data center. “There was no explosion or seismic signal at all, so it could be consistent with this anchor theory,” said Kjølv Egeland, a senior researcher at Norsar.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which carried natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, were damaged in an explosion in September 2022. In August, it was claimed that the explosion was the work of a small Ukrainian sabotage team. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied this.
Then, in October 2023, an accident in the Baltic Sea caused extensive damage to the Baltic Connector gas pipeline. Finnish investigators recovered the anchor of a large ship connected to the Chinese container ship New New Polar Bear near the scene.
Swedish prosecutors said: “The cable between Sweden and Lithuania, owned by a Swedish company, was damaged on November 17th. The cable between Finland and Germany, located south of the cable between Sweden and Lithuania, was damaged several hours later. Both damage sites are located within the Swedish economic zone.
Finnish police announced that crime scene investigators at the scene of the cable break between Finland and Germany are collecting cable samples for further analysis, and the damage is being investigated as aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with communications. .
Kristersson met the leaders of the Nordic and Baltic states at a summit in Haapsund, Sweden, on Wednesday and said the Baltic Sea was now a “high-risk” area.
“We recognize that there are high risks associated with various types of hazardous activities in the Baltic Sea,” he said.
He added: “We are careful not to accuse anyone of anything right now. We don't know this is sabotage. But we are looking into this matter very carefully. I am doing it.”
