Baltic littoral states are on high alert as a fresh round of attacks on subsea infrastructure ripples across the region, with authorities in Latvia and Finland probing separate incidents involving damaged undersea telecommunications cables and suspected vessel involvement. Latvian police said an undersea telecoms cable in the Baltic Sea was damaged on Friday, prompting investigators to board a vessel on Sunday as part of the inquiry. The cable links Sventoji in Lithuania with Liepaja in Latvia, a distance of around 65 km. Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre said it was too early to determine the cause of the damage. “At this time, neither the vessel nor its crew is detained, they are cooperating with the police, and active work continues to clarify the circumstances,” Latvian police said in a statement posted on X. Latvia’s prime minister, Evika Silina, said the damage occurred near Liepaja but stressed there was no impact on users. “The incident has not affected Latvian communications users,” she wrote on X. The Latvian case comes just days after Finnish authorities seized the general cargo ship Fitburg on suspicion of sabotaging an undersea telecoms cable linking Helsinki with Estonia across the Gulf of Finland. Finnish police said underwater surveys revealed a trail of anchor drag marks stretching tens of kilometres along the seabed. “Based on the investigations carried out so far, there is reason to suspect that the Fitburg vessel’s anchor and anchor chain dragged along the seabed at least tens of kilometers before the damage point,” Finnish authorities said in a statement. The Fitburg, flying the flag of St Vincent and the Grenadines, was intercepted on December 31 while sailing from Russia to Israel carrying steel products. Finnish Border Guard helicopters and patrol vessels shadowed the ship before special forces boarded it in a coordinated operation. One crew member has been arrested, with others placed under travel restrictions, as police investigate suspected aggravated damage and aggravated interference with telecommunications. Detective chief superintendent Risto Lohi said the focus is now on intent. “The technical and tactical investigation is progressing with the help of several authorities. The focus is on assessing intent and the information that influences it,” he said. The incidents add to mounting concern over the security of subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, where a series of power cable, gas pipeline and telecoms outages have been recorded since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. NATO has since stepped up its regional presence with frigates, aircraft and naval drones, as the Baltic increasingly becomes a focal point for what officials describe as “hybrid threats” targeting critical maritime infrastructure. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsFinland Latvia