Sweden investigating damage to Baltic undersea cable

An undersea telecoms cable connecting Estonia and Sweden has been damaged, the Swedish government has announced.

Civil defence minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said the cable was damaged but not completely destroyed.

He said the cable is believed to have been damaged at the same time as a gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia earlier this month.

Finland said last week that the pipeline was likely intentionally sabotaged.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Mr Bohlin said the cause of the damage remains unknown. Swedish investigators will cooperate with their Finnish and Estonian counterparts, he added.

Damage to the natural gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland was detected on 8 October. Finnish authorities said the pipeline, as well as a telecoms cable, were damaged in two places.

Finnish sources told the BBC last week that they suspect Russian sabotage in "retribution" for the country's decision to join Nato in April this year.

Countries on the Baltic Sea have been in a state of heightened vigilance regarding potential sabotage of undersea infrastructure since last September, when the Nord Stream 2 undersea pipeline was rendered inoperable by a series of explosions.

It remains unclear which state or actor was responsible for the attack on Nord Stream 2, which was built to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany - though it was never put into service.

Ukraine has denied reports that a pro-Ukrainian group was responsible for the blasts. Russia has also denied any involvement.

At a meeting of the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned that undersea data cables were liable to sabotage.

"There is a spaghetti of cables on the seabed," Mr Kristersson said on Friday, adding that the infrastructure was both essential to the modern economy and vulnerable to attack.

Sweden applied to join Nato in 2022, at the same time as Finland. But while Finland's accession was approved in April, Sweden's bid has been held up by opposition from Hungary and Turkey and the country remains outside the alliance.