Chinese cargo ship suspected in ‘sabotage’ of Baltic Sea cables
By Rob Harris
London: A Chinese-registered vessel is under investigation by European authorities after it was detected in the area where two critical data cables were severed in the Baltic Sea in a suspected act of sabotage.
Yi Peng 3, a Chinese bulk carrier, was on its way from the Russian port of Ust-Luga to Port Said in Egypt, according to maritime tracking group Marine Traffic, passing close to the Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German cables about the time each was cut on Sunday and Monday.
Yi Peng 3 passing under the Great Belt Bridge on Tuesday. Credit: Storebælt Bridge webcam
Swedish public broadcaster SVT and several Finnish media outlets reported that two Danish navy ships shadowed the ship as it sailed out of the Baltic Sea on Tuesday.
The four countries affected by the cuts – Finland, Germany, Lithuania and Sweden – have all launched investigations. The Financial Times reported that the Swedes were examining what role the Yi Peng 3 might have played.
Sweden’s minister for civil defence, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, told AFP in a written statement it was “crucial to clarify why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working”.
NATO member states – including Sweden and Finland, which joined after Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion – have been on high alert after a series of attempted Russian sabotage attacks on the alliance this year, including arson in Germany. In September 2022, a series of underwater blasts ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe.
The latest probe comes a year after the anchor from another Chinese ship – the container vessel NewNew Polar Bear – damaged a Baltic gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.
Like Yi Peng 3, NewNew Polar Bear had departed from a Russian port before the incident.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Monday the severing of two fibre-optic cables in 24 hours was likely to have been sabotage and was an act of hybrid warfare.
“No one believes that these cables were cut accidentally ... Therefore, we have to state, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a ‘hybrid’ action,” he said. “And we also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it is sabotage.”
Yi Peng 3 is owned by Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, a company that owns only one other vessel and is based near the eastern Chinese port city of Ningbo, the Financial Times reported, adding it was unable to contact the company.
China’s embassy in Stockholm told the newspaper: “We do not have information on this issue.” Its embassy in Helsinki did not respond to a request for comment.
The US has accused China of offering direct support to Russia’s “war machine” by supplying its military with items that were helping it in its invasion of Ukraine. But there has been little if any public discussion about the activity of Chinese ships in the Baltic Sea.
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