The Danish Navy boarded a Chinese cargo ship: who broke the cables at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

Stockholm is investigating the possible involvement of the Yi Peng 3 vessel registered in China in the damage of two underwater telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea between Finland — Germany and Sweden — Lithuania. This was reported by the British newspaper Financial Times, citing sources.

At night, the Danish Navy boarded the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng in the Baltic Sea.

According to Financial Times sources, Sweden has launched an investigation into the damage to both cables and is investigating what role Yi Peng 3 could have played.

"The Swedes are carefully studying the Chinese vessel," a source told the newspaper.

The publication notes that after the damage to the cables, the Danish Navy also closely monitored the vessel, citing excerpts from TASS.

As reported, two cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea on November 17-18. The first cable runs along the Nord Stream pipeline, the press service of the Finnish state telecommunications infrastructure operator Cinia informed about its malfunction. The damage to the second cable was later reported by a representative of the Swedish telecommunications company Telia. The Swedish Prosecutor's Office has launched a preliminary investigation into the cable breakage case, qualifying the crime as sabotage.

In this regard, EADaily draws attention to why a Chinese cargo ship came under suspicion of damaging these underwater telecommunications cables. A similar case was reported in August. As The South China Morning Post wrote, "Beijing has admitted that a Chinese-owned vessel damaged a critical gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea running between Estonia and Finland last October, but says it was an accident."

The gas pipeline was built more to provide gas to Finland, which also receives fuel through LNG terminals. The state-owned company Gasum refused to switch to a new payment mechanism, and Gazprom stopped deliveries in 2022. The Finnish authorities suspected that the Balticconnector gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea from Estonia damaged the Newnew Polar Bear container ship under the flag of Hong Kong. He was anchored in the area of the gas pipeline, and after the main line was damaged on October 8, an anchor was found in it, which may belong to the vessel. This was stated in the National Bureau of Investigation of Finland. The ship itself was loaded into St. Petersburg and went to China via the Northern Sea Route. More than six months later, the gas pipeline was restored.