Are underwater pipelines, cables being sabotaged in the Baltic Sea? Why?
Al Jazeera
A series of unexplained incidents causing damage to pipelines and cables in the Baltic Sea has occurred in the past two years. Could this be a new form of underwater warfare?
Two fibre-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea were severed on Sunday and Monday, raising suspicions over a Chinese cargo vessel, which the Danish navy is currently shadowing through the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden.
The Chinese vessel, which departed Ust-Luga port in Russia on Friday last week and appeared to pass over the area where the incidents occurred, has been labelled “of interest” by Swedish police, who are looking into the incident.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Wednesday that the incident must be investigated, adding: “We have seen sabotage in the past, so we take it very seriously.”
This is just the latest in a series of incidents involving pipelines or cables in the Baltic Sea in the past couple of years. So what is happening in the Baltic Sea, and what role does underwater sabotage play in international conflict?
The deep, dark, brackish expanse of the Baltic Sea bed has become a hotbed of geopolitical machinations since two Nord Stream gas pipelines, which are owned by a consortium of energy companies including Russian gas giant Gazprom and which run from Russia to Germany, were rocked by explosions in September 2022.
