Undersea cable mishap in Baltic: Rostelekom begins repairs
Another undersea cable has been damaged in the Baltic Sea. The Russian company Rostelekom reported the failure on Saturday.
The company Rostelekom stated that the failure did not affect subscribers' access to the network, and repair work is in progress.
"The Rostelekom underwater cable was damaged in the Baltic Sea as a result of an external impact. The damage did not affect the company's subscribers. Repair work is ongoing," stated the Rostelekom press service.
Earlier on Saturday, the Finnish Gulf Coast Guard reported on social media that a Russian vessel had begun repairing a broken Russian cable.
A series of incidents in the Baltic Sea
This incident is reminiscent of earlier cases where undersea cables at the bottom of the Baltic Sea were damaged. The last such situation occurred at the end of January, when an undersea fibre optic cable laid at the bottom of the Baltic between the western coast of Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland was damaged. The cable might have been damaged by the Bulgarian ship Vezhen, but it was not intentional.
In the Swedish economic zone in mid-November last year, two telecommunications cables were severed, one connecting Finland with Germany and the other connecting Sweden with Finland. The Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 was suspected of causing the damage.
Meanwhile, on 25 December, the EstLink2, an electricity cable running under the Gulf of Finland, was severed. Finnish authorities suspected the damage to the undersea cable might be related to the tanker Eagle S, which likely belongs to the Russian "shadow fleet."
At the end of December, four undersea data transmission cables were also damaged. Three between Finland and Estonia and one leading to Germany.
Source: PAP, TASS
