Russian company publicly admits for the first time that the Baltic Sea cable is broken, what is the reason?

Russia's state-owned company Rostelecom publicly acknowledged for the first time that the Baltic Sea cable was broken in a statement on November 7.

Doanh nghiệp Nga lần đầu công khai thừa nhận tuyến cáp ở Biển Baltic bị đứt, lý do là gì?

Rostelecom informed that Russian specialized ships started repairing fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea from November 5. (Source: Rostelecom)

Rostelecom confirmed that the company's telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea was damaged at 8:30 p.m. on October 7. The Russian company described it as an accident and did not mention the cause.

According to Rostelecom, the location of the cut fiber optic cable is only about 28 km from the location of the broken Balticconnector gas pipeline.

When asked about the possibility of causing this incident, a Rostelecom spokesman said that at the time the fiber optic cable was damaged, the Chinese-flagged ship NewNew Polar Bear was in a position with coordinates that coincided with the telecommunications cable route.

For its part, China has said it is ready to provide necessary information on the incident in accordance with international law. NewNew Shipping - the owner and operator of the NewNew Polar Bear - has yet to comment on the incident.

Rostelecom reported that a Russian specialized ship began repairing fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea on November 5. The repair is expected to last 10 days, depending on weather conditions.

The cable is estimated to be around 1,000 km long, running between the city of St Petersburg and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad (located between Lithuania and Poland) and partly passing through the exclusive economic zones of both Finland and Sweden.

According to Rostelecom, users were not affected by the broken cable because data was still transmitted via ground routes and backup satellite channels.

According to Finland's YLE News , on October 12, Rostelecom informed Finnish authorities about the need to repair the broken cable.

The Gulf of Finland Coast Guard later confirmed on social network X that it was monitoring the repair of the Russian cable by the ship Spasatel Karev.

Thus, three telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea and one gas pipeline were damaged in less than 9 hours on October 7.

Data from MarineTraffic shows that the NewNew Polar Bear passed the Swedish-Estonian telecommunications cable at 3:13 p.m., then passed the Russian cable at around 8:20 p.m., passed the Balticconnector at 10:20 p.m., and passed the Finnish-Estonian telecommunications cable at 11:49 p.m., all on October 7.

During the investigation, Finnish authorities also suspect that the NewNew Polar Bear caused serious damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and telecommunications cables when the ship dragged its anchor on the seabed while moving in the area.

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