NATO's newest member comes out swinging following latest Baltic Sea cable attack

Sweden has committed to sending naval forces into the Baltic Sea following yet another suspected Russian attack on underwater cables in the region.

The deployment of three warships and a surveillance airplane from NATO's newest member to assist the bloc's attempts to prevent more subsea cable sabotage marks Sweden's first such foray, but Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has suggested it may hardly be the last.

"Sweden is not at war. But there is no peace either," Kristersson said in a speech over the weekend at Sweden's annual defense conference in Sälen. "Sweden has changed. From being a little too often a blue-eyed idealist on the sidelines, to becoming a realist in the center of events."

While touching on a series of Russia-related issues in his speech, Kristersson's address centered on damage to two subsea cables in the Baltic owned by Finnish telecom firm Elisa and the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 subsea power line in late December.

While Elisa's cables have been repaired, Estlink 2 is likely to be down for months. While no one is jumping to conclusions, it looks an awful lot like the damage was intentional sabotage by oil tanker Eagle S, a craft believed to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" [PDF] of tanker ships being used to evade oil export sanctions put in place following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

It's believed that Eagle S severed the Finnish cables by dragging its anchor across the seafloor, and one of the Swedish ships deployed to assist in the investigation has recovered an anchor believed to be responsible for the damage, Kristersson said in his address.

Eagle S was seized by Finnish authorities days after the cable severing and remains impounded near the Finnish town of Porvoo.

"Sweden does not jump to conclusions or accuse anyone of sabotage without very strong reasons," Kristersson noted. "But we are not naive either."

The Swedish PM noted that "strange things happen time and time again in the Baltic Sea," suggesting that hostile intent can't be ruled out. Furthermore, Kristersson said, there's really no good explanation for Eagle S's actions that eliminates intent.

"There is little evidence that a ship would, accidentally and without noticing it, drag an anchor with 300 meters of chain for over one hundred kilometers, without understanding that it could cause damage," Kristersson said.

Russia has been suspected of plotting the destruction of undersea cables for some time, and its navy has been spotted operating in close proximity to subsea data corridors, raising further concerns that attacks are imminent.

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The damage to Finnish cables in late December isn't even the first such incident in recent months. A pair of fiber internet lines that run beneath the Baltic between Germany and Finland were damaged in November.

A Chinese ship has since been suspected of causing the damage; Taiwan has also accused China of cutting its subsea cables.

"Sweden and our neighbors will not accept this continuing," Kristersson said of the continued incidents in the region. "Together with our neighbors and allies, it is our task to secure the Baltic Sea as a sea of ​​peace and freedom."

While he took pains to note that no one has concluded Russia is behind all the action under the surface of the Baltic Sea, the Swedish Prime Minister didn't mince words later in his speech.

"The Russian threat is by all accounts long term. So must our defense," Kristersson said. ®