Ship with Russian crew suspected of being involved in “serious damage” to an underwater telecom cable between Latvia and Sweden has been boarded by Norwegian police.
OSLO — Norwegian police said this weekend they had seized and boarded a Norwegian ship with an all-Russian crew on suspicion of involvement in causing damage to a telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea, the second vessel to be named by investigators in the case.
The Silver Dania cargo ship was seized at the request of Latvian authorities, and with the help of Norway’s coast guard, police in the northern Norwegian city of Tromsoe said.
“It is suspected that the ship has been involved in serious damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden,” the police said in a statement.
The Silver Dania cargo vessel, with an all-Russian crew, was seized by Norway’s authorities following a request by Latvian officials and a Norwegian court ruling.
The Silver Dania’s owner, the Silver Sea shipping group, denied that the vessel was involved in the undersea fiber optic cable damage, Norwegian broadcaster TV2 reported.
Sweden and Latvia are investigating the suspected sabotage on Sunday of the cable linking the two countries, and Swedish police seized and boarded Maltese-flagged cargo ship Vezhen on suspicion it caused the damage.
The Silver Dania was stopped on Thursday and brought into the port of Tromso on Friday by the coast guard for inspection.
Damage to an underwater fiber optic cable in the Baltic Sea, running from Ventspils in Latvia, to the Swedish island of Gotland, was detected last Sunday.
Norwegian police said the two ship seizures were related to the same incident.
“The suspicion is that someone on the (Silver Dania) has something to do with the cable incident,” police lawyer Ronny Joergensen told a press conference. He declined to provide detail.
The Baltic Sea region is on high alert after a string of power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the NATO military alliance recently boosted its presence with frigates, aircraft and naval drones.
Ship was sailing to Murmansk in Russian Arctic
Mats Ljungqvist, the Swedish prosecutor handling the sabotage investigation in Sweden, said he now had a clearer picture of what happened and that he believed that the Vezhen had caused the cable damage.
“Our view is that it is the vessel that we have seized that has caused the cable break,” he told Reuters.
“We have looked at the vessel that has been seized in Norway but for various reasons we have dismissed it.”
He declined to comment further on the investigation, citing confidentiality.
The head of the Bulgarian company that operates the Vezhen said on Monday it might have struck the Baltic undersea cable with its anchor but denied any malicious intent. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
The ship that was seized in Norway was Norwegian owned and flagged, and had been sailing from St. Petersburg in the Baltic Sea to Murmansk in the Russian Arctic, police said.
The owner and crew of the Silver Dania had voluntarily agreed that it would follow a coast guard vessel to port, the police added.
The seizure comes after Finland separately seized a Russian-linked oil tanker after a cable connecting it and Estonia was cut as well.
The Baltic Sea region has been on high alert following a string of power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
In the face of the most recent developments, NATO boosted its presence in the region.
Latvia’s State Police confirmed they had requested the arrest of the Silver Dania in Norway.
“We are in close contact with the Norwegian law enforcement authorities, but in the interest of investigation, we will not comment further at this time,” a Latvian police spokesperson said.
By REUTERS
Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by Stine Jacobsen and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
