It is thinner than a fire hose and has high-performance fiber optics inside.all covered in steel and a waterproof protective layer. We are talking about the underwater communication line “Cinia C-Lion 1”, which connects the capital of Finland, Helsinki, with the German city of Rostock. There are about 1,200 kilometers of genuine information highway.
When it was installed, A one-meter-deep trench was dug into the seabed to provide additional protection. And yet, despite all precautions, the cable was damaged on Monday, November 18 off the island of Öland, as happened with another similar cable that links Sweden and Lithuania.
Suspicion of sabotage now falls on the crew of a Chinese cargo ship whose crew includes a Russian captain. The ship would have sailed through the places where the damage occurred, and had previously docked in a Russian port. The ship also disconnected its transponder, necessary to determine its position at sea. Despite this, the Danish Navy knows its location and is monitoring it closely.
It is not the first case
The events are reminiscent of another incident that occurred in the Baltic Sea on October 7, 2023explains Moritz Brake, maritime safety expert at the University of Bonn (Germany). On that occasion, suspicions also fell on a Chinese ship, a container freighter that had damaged two data cables and the “Baltic Connector” gas pipeline with a dragged anchor, apparently by accident.
Brake does not believe the version of the accident. “The anchor was dragged about 180 kilometers across the seabed. There is no way something like this could be an accident,” he says. Besides, The freighter was accompanied by alleged Russian research ships and the events took place on the birthday of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “There are too many coincidences,” he points out.
Western secret services have long been concerned about alleged Russian research ships sailing in the seas off northern Europe, which could rather be spying on Western infrastructure.
In the case of affected data cables, spying is not even necessary, because their location can be consulted on the Internet. The Finnish company Cinia even published a video in 2015 showing that a large part of the C-Lion 1 cable was laid parallel to the Nordstream gas pipeline, the same one that was the subject of an explosive attack in September 2022, an incident that remains unexplained.
Minor damage, major sign
The actual damage caused to the cable was limited. “Cables have been damaged by accident all over the world,” says Brake. “That’s why, “This infrastructure is designed so that the effects of these damages are covered by other cables, so users do not realize what happened.”.
And yet, the expert recalls, this is critical infrastructure and more than 90 percent of global data traffic passes through submarine cables. “If specific points are deliberately targeted or, as in this case, two cables are damaged, it is possible that more cables will be affected next time. And then we will quickly have problems.”
The message these actions send should also not be underestimated. “Here there is increasingly closer cooperation between China and Russia, but also with Iran and North Korea. Global actions against Western interests have been carried out for a long time,” he maintains. “The question is how we are going to react to these episodes.”
There is no complete security
Can this infrastructure be better protected? Three quarters of the planet is covered by oceans, and there are more than 500 cables of this type. It doesn’t matter whether it’s data networks, maritime trade, oil or gas pipelines: monitoring and protecting everything always and comprehensively is simply impossible, says Brake.
Western societies will continue to coexist with these acts of sabotage, although – Brake highlights – not in total defenselessness. “At least we can strengthen our surveillance capabilities, that is, be able to recognize, verify and make visible when other actors are threatening our infrastructure.”
(dzc/ms)