Baltic Sea Underwater Infrastructure Events

The Baltic Sea is traversed by many means of communication and power distribution and by pipelines. ^[1] These are vulnerable to incidents which might damage them, in particular involving anchoring. There have been multiple incidents which have caused disruption to undersea infrastructure.

Summary table

Baltic Sea Underwater Infrastructure Events ^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}

Date	Facility	Type	Between	And	Nature of event	Suspects	Notes
10 October 2004	Bornholm Cable	power cable	Sweden	Denmark	severed [7]	possibly Tuc Merkur [8] [9]	tug and barge with coal to the Avedøre Power Station
January 2010	Bornholm Cable	power cable	Sweden	Denmark	severed	Timberland [8] [10]
15 January 2013	Bornholm Cable	power cable	Sweden	Denmark	severed	not named [11]	compensation paid [8]
28 February 2022	Bornholm Cable	power cable	Sweden	Denmark	severed	tanker Samus Swan [12]	tanker's anchor fouled the cable [8]
26 September 2022	Nord Stream 1 & 2	gas pipelines	Russia	Germany	explosion	unknown	Danish and German investigations
7 October 2023	EE-S1	fiberoptic communications cable	Sweden	Estonia	partly severed	cargo ships Sevmorput and Newnew Polar Bear	investigation concluded cable was damaged by external force
8 October 2023	Balticconnector	gas pipeline	Finland	Estonia	physical	container ship Newnew Polar Bear	Chinese government later admitted the ship was at fault
18 November 2024	BCS East-West Interlink	data cable	Sweden	Lithuania	severed	bulk carrier Yi Peng 3	investigation ongoing
18 November 2024	C-Lion1	data cable	Finland	Germany	severed	bulk carrier Yi Peng 3	investigation ongoing
25 December 2024	Estlink 2	power cable	Finland	Estonia	severed	oil tanker Eagle S	investigation ongoing
26 January 2025	TV & Radio	fiberoptic TV & radio cable	Sweden	Latvia	severed	Vezhen or Silver Dania?	suspicions of deliberate sabotage later dropped - deemed an accident
26 January 2025 (detected February)	C-Lion1 submarine cable	telecommunications	Finland	Germany	data disturbance	?	investigation ongoing
31 December 2025	Elisa data cable	data cable	Finland	Estonia	data disruption	freighter Fitburg [13]	investigation ongoing; anchor dragged 10s of km

See also

• Cable landing point
• List of international submarine communications cables
• 2024 Baltic Sea submarine cable disruptions
• Russian hybrid warfare
• Russian sabotage operations in Europe
• Russian shadow fleet
• Severing of the Svalbard undersea cable

References

1. "Submarine Cable Map 2025". submarine-cable-map-2025.telegeography.com. Retrieved 26 January 2026.
2. "Mapping Undersea Infrastructure Attacks in the Baltic Sea | Wilson Center". www.wilsoncenter.org. 24 March 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
3. "Subsea Sabotage: A Timeline of Disturbing Events in the Baltic Sea - Maritime Hub". maritime-hub.com. 4 January 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
4. Buchholz, Katharina. "Baltic Sea Cable Incidents Pile Up—Who Is To Blame?". Forbes. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
5. "Navigating the threats to seabed infrastructure". Silobreaker. 28 May 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
6. "Global powers race to protect undersea cables from rising Russia-China threats". Cybernews. 21 July 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
7. "Dyr reparation af bornholmer-kabel - TV 2" [Expensive repair of Bornholm cable]. nyheder.tv2.dk (in Danish). 11 October 2004. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
8. "overrevne soekabler historien der gentager sig" [Overcrowded sea cables - history repeating itself]. TV 2/Bornholm. Retrieved 25 January 2026.
9. "Kungörelse" [Announcement]. Dagens Nyheter: 14. 2005-06-29.
10. Godske Følg, Bjørn (12 January 2010). "Efter kabelbrud - Bornholm: Vi er verdensmestre i ø-drift" [After cable break - Bornholm: We are world champions]. ing.dk. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
11. "Höga vågor försenar lagning av kabel - Skadad elledning till Bornholm" [High waves delay cable repair - Damaged power line to Bornholm]. Ystads Allehanda: 18. 2013-01-15.
12. "Mulig kæmpeerstatning paa vej for ødelagt soekabel" [Possible huge compensation on the way for damaged submarine cable]. TV 2/Bornholm . 3 March 2022.
13. "Finland releases ship suspected of Baltic cable damage, orders some crew to remain". yle.fi. 12 January 2026. Retrieved 12 January 2026.

Further reading

• Submarine Cable Map 2025 telegeography.com