Update on the Baltic Subsea Cable Outages

Both cables has been repaired, namely the one connecting Lithuania to Sweden and the C-Lion system as well. The emerging consensus within the European subsea cable community is that the German, Finnish, and Estonian authorities are wrong in claiming sabotage. Anchor dragging is a very crude form of sabotage and in this case the Chinese ship Li Peng crossed 13 cables and only damaged two. Secondly, a key requirement of sabotage is a safe get away. A heavy, slow cargo ship is not a good getaway car. Furthermore, the European press got it wrong when it claimed the ship captain is Russian. It is a Chinese ship with a Chinese captain. I have written an article explaining why the sabotage accusations are so flimsy in my opinion: https://subseacables.blogspot.com/2024/11/american-officials-say-no-sabotage-in.html.

Map of Two Baltic Subsea Fibre Optic Cables

The ship dragged its anchor probably to steady itself in bad weather and turned off the transponder because the captain knew what it was doing was irresponsible. I suspect the legal charge will be criminal negligence. Chinese ships have a well documented history of recklessness in both the Baltic Sea and the Pacific. 

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