There are currently several ships of NATO countries in the Baltic Sea monitoring the sea in an enhanced manner, but that did not prevent the incident.
17:38•Updated 18:21
The military alliance NATO is involved in investigating the breakage of the cable between Latvia and Sweden.
– NATO ships and aircraft are operating alongside the allies in the region, investigating and responding to what happened, a spokesman for the NATO Naval Staff MARCOM Arlo Abrahamson tells .
– The enhanced presence of allies in the area enables an appropriate and coordinated response, the staff says.
Two weeks ago, NATO started the Baltic Sea Guard operation, after the electricity and data cables between Finland and Estonia were damaged after the Eagle S dropped its anchor in the Gulf of Finland.
The new cable breach happened while the NATO surveillance operation was underway.
The purpose of the Baltic Sentry operation is to prevent and help investigate similar violations of critical structures on the seabed.
According to the Latvian Defense Forces, the damaged area is in Sweden’s economic zone.
The Latvian Navy says that it inspected one ship that was possibly involved in the incident. According to the Navy, two other possible vessels were identified in the area of the cable failure, but they were outside Latvia’s territorial waters and EEZ.
The cable broke, even though NATO has a monitoring operation in the Baltic Sea
The military alliance sent ships on NATO watch to the sea. Several ships from the Baltic Sea countries and other NATO countries have also joined. According to ‘s information, a dozen vessels were planned for the scope of the operation.
There is control both on the surface of the sea and under the surface. Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte said in Helsinki on January 14th at the Baltic Sea NATO countries’ summit that maritime drones, airplanes, submarines and technical means of surveillance are involved.
Several ships of the Finnish Navy are joining the operation, the first of them is going to sea tomorrow, Monday.
By increasing surveillance, NATO is supposed to prevent intentional cable breaches from happening, as it is believed that the perpetrators will be caught due to the merits of surveillance. The operation should act as a deterrent.
On the other hand, due to enhanced supervision, possible violations should be resolved more easily than before.
the news is being updated