The Danish navy is keeping tabs on a Chinese ship in the Strait of Kattegat days after the severing of telecommunications cables running from Finland to Germany – with one analyst claiming it may even have been boarded.
Speaking on Tuesday, Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister said officials were working on the assumption that damage to two data cables under the Baltic Sea, one of which ends in Germany, was caused by sabotage – though he said they have no proof at present.
And just before 1pm, the Marine Traffic website showed the ship, Yi Peng 3, in close proximity to a DNK Naval Patrol 525 in the Strait.
Posting on X, one poster billing themselves as the “Chief Commander” of the North Atlantic Fella Movement (NAFO), a social media collective dedicated to countering Russian propaganda, posted: “The Chinese-flagged ship Yi Peng 3 whose captain is Russian has just been intercepted and boarded by the Danish ship Y311 Soloven.
“This Chinese ship is strongly suspected of being the cause of the rupture of submarine cables in the Baltic Sea.
“Russian Captain in jail?”
A post on X by the Danish Armed Forces, said: “Regarding the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3:
“The Danish Defence can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3.
“The Danish Defence currently has no further comments.”
Damage was detected on Monday to the C-Lion1 cable which runs almost 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) from Finland’s capital, Helsinki, to the German port city of Rostock. Another cable between Lithuania and Sweden was also damaged.
Speaking in Brussels, Mr Pistorius said that Russia poses not just a military but also a hybrid threat, and that Europe needs to take a broad approach to defense. He said the damage to the two cables was “a very clear sign that something is afoot.”
He told a regular meeting of European Union defence ministers: “No one believes these cables were severed by mistake, and I also don’t want to believe versions that it was anchors that by chance caused damage to these cables.
“So we have to state – without knowing in concrete terms who it came from – that this is a hybrid action. And we also have to assume – without already knowing it, obviously – that this is sabotage.”
The foreign ministries of Finland and Germany had already said the damage raised suspicion of sabotage.
They said in a joint statement that the damage comes at a time that “our European security is not only under threat from Russia‘s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”
The statement said the countries were investigating the incident, and that it was crucial that such “critical infrastructure” be safeguarded.
Yesterday, Swedish police said they had launched a preliminary investigation into suspected sabotage regarding the two cable breaches, though they said the classification of the suspected offense “may change”.
