An undersea fibre-optic cable linking Lithuania and Latvia was damaged in the Baltic Sea near the Latvian port city of Liepāja, likely by a vessel that crossed over it, authorities said Sunday.
Lithuanian authorities have been in close contact with Latvian services since early Saturday regarding the suspected damage to the maritime cable connecting Šventoji, Lithuania, and Liepāja, according to a statement from Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre.
Latvian police told news portal Delfi.lv that a vessel is considered the likely cause. Based on an analysis by the National Armed Forces’ Coast Guard Service, the ship initially travelled over an inactive cable but later altered course and crossed an active cable, which was subsequently damaged.
On Sunday, police officers, working with the coast guard and other internal security services, boarded the vessel, which is currently docked at the port of Liepāja. Authorities have been in contact with the crew since then.
Neither the vessel nor its crew has been detained. Police said the crew is cooperating and that efforts to determine the circumstances of the incident are ongoing.
According to Delfi.lv, Latvian Crisis Management Centre head Arvis Zīle said during a broadcast of the television program Panorama that Latvian authorities first learned of the damage from Lithuania’s crisis management centre. He said Lithuania reported Saturday that a privately owned cable may have been damaged on Friday.
Zīle said an initial assessment was conducted after the report, relevant agencies were notified, and the cable’s owner was contacted. The company later confirmed that damage had been detected.
Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa also posted Sunday on X that damage had been identified to a privately owned cable in the Baltic Sea near Liepāja.
Authorities said services to customers in both Lithuania and Latvia continue as normal, and users are not expected to experience disruptions.
The incident follows heightened concerns over the security of critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. About a year ago, after suspected acts of sabotage damaged several undersea telecommunications and power cables, NATO launched a monitoring mission in the region known as Baltic Sentry.
On New Year’s Eve, an undersea cable operated by Elisa between Finland and Estonia was also damaged. Finnish police later detained the 132-meter vessel Fitburg, traveling from St Petersburg, Russia, to Haifa, Israel, along with its 14 crew members, on suspicion that the ship’s anchor damaged a telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland.
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