The Norwegian police announced that they have detained a Norwegian-registered vessel with a Russian crew suspected of being involved in the sabotage of underwater telecommunications cables between Sweden and Latvia in the Baltic Sea.
The police in Tromsø stated on Friday that the ship, Silver Dania, which is Norwegian-owned and registered, was detained following a legal request from Latvian authorities and based on an order from the District Court in Tromsø, Norway.
This marks the second ship to be detained in the past week related to the damage of the cables. Swedish police previously detained a Maltese-flagged cargo vessel under suspicion of damaging underwater cables.
“There are suspicions that the ship was involved in significant damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden,” the police said in a statement. “The police are conducting an operation on the vessel, including searches, interviews, and evidence collection.”
The cargo ship Vezhen, anchored near Swedish shores on January 27, 2025, was also investigated by Swedish authorities.
Several underwater telecommunications and energy cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Experts and politicians have blamed Russia’s shadow fleet, made up of old oil tankers, for these acts. The Kremlin has denied any involvement.
Due to recent sabotage activities in the region, NATO and EU leaders have agreed to launch a surveillance mission in the Baltic Sea. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has stated that such “hostile actions” will not go unanswered, promising to increase NATO’s military presence in the region.
The first major sabotage incident occurred in September 2022 when a series of underwater explosions destroyed the Nord Stream gas pipeline, built to transport Russian gas to Europe. The cause of the explosions remains undetermined.
In October 2023, an underwater pipeline between Finland and Estonia was shut down after being damaged by the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship.
