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Yesterday we learned that two undersea data cables stretched out on the bottom of the Baltic Sea had been severed, likely by sabotage. A cable connecting Sweden to Lithuania was severed early Sunday morning and about a day later a cable connecting Finland to Germany was also severed.
No one was pointing fingers yesterday because the cables hadn’t even been examined, but the general thought was that Russia was likely responsible. In fact, the US had warned just a couple months ago that Russia seemed to be preparing these attacks using a fleet of spy ships.
Today, Germany’s defense minister confirmed this was an act of sabotage aimed at European countries supporting Ukraine, though he still held back from directly blaming Russia.
“Nobody believes that these cables were severed by accident,” Germany’s minister of defense, Boris Pistorius, told reporters ahead of a meeting of European security officials in Brussels.
He did not believe that either of the cables could have been damaged by ships accidentally dropping their anchors. “Therefore we must state — without concrete knowledge of who was responsible — that this was a hybrid action,” he said. “And we must assume, without being certain, that this was sabotage.”
However, another story that made the rounds last week is taking on some new significance in light of the sabotage this week.
