Swedish and Latvian authorities are investigating alleged sabotage in the Baltic which the Bulgarian operator insists was a simple accident during heavy weather.
A data cable carrying internet traffic between Latvia and Sweden was put out of action on Sunday evening, just the latest incidence of alleged sabotage against European interests since Russia began its invasion re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022. NATO and the European Union say such attacks are part of a ‘Hybrid’ war against the West so called because the strikes often defy definite proof of intent, or even culprit.
A Swedish warship and coastguards were dispatched after the cable break was detected and troops boarded a Bulgarian-operated, Maltese-flagged bulk carrier the VEZHEN, which was on passage carrying fertiliser from Russia to South America. The ship is presently impounded in Swedish waters.
The real ownership of the massive ships that carry world trade is often obscure, and this ship is no different. . While early reports stated the VEZHEN is Bulgarian-owned, Finnish media now asserts it is merely operated by Bulgaria, and is actually Chinese-owned.
In common with other such claimed hybrid warfare attacks in the Baltic in recent months it is asserted the VEZHEN dragged its anchor on the sea bed, snagging the internet cable and snapping it. The Latvian cable operator reported while it would slow down internet traffic between the two countries, there were redundancies in place and no outages had been reported.
The Bulgarian shipping company that owns the impounded ship Navibulgar insists the damage was an innocent accident caused by a storm blowing through the Baltic, and that it was not a “malicious act”. The Associated Press reports their spokesman said: “I hope that the investigators will quickly establish that this is not a matter of any intentional action, but a technical incident due to bad weather, and that the ship will be released”.
Newspaper Aftonbladet cites new images of VEZHEN captured by a Swedish journalist which show one of the ship’s giant anchors is missing one of its horns, which appears to have been snapped clean off, suggesting it may indeed have been dragged on the sea bed some distance.
Breitbart London has reported at length on the sudden rash of damage to undersea cables and pipelines in the three years of Russia’s war against Ukraine, from the bombing of the Nord Stream pipes in the first days of the conflict to the anchor-draggers of the past year. NATO has stood up a new task force in the Baltic to monitor sabotage and to discourage attacks after a Russian-linked ship dragged its anchor 60 miles through the area on Christmas Day, damaging cables as it went.
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