Bulgarian ship under probe for damage to Sweden-Latvia cable
The Vezhen ship, owned by Navigation Maritime Bulgare, might have accidentally damaged the cable between Sweden and Latvia. The incident, reported by Reuters, was not intentional according to the company's head, Aleksandar Kalchev.
The Vezhen ship has come under scrutiny after potentially damaging the underwater cable connecting Sweden and Latvia. Aleksandar Kalchev, the head of the Bulgarian transport company, emphasized in a statement quoted by the Reuters that this was not an intentional act.
Kalchev suggested that one of the anchors may have dropped to the bottom due to strong winds, which could have caused it to strike the fiber optic cable. On Saturday evening, Swedish authorities detained the Bulgarian container ship, which sails under the flag of Malta. The Vezhen, sailing from a Russian port, is currently near Karlskrona, off the southeastern coast of Sweden. Photos published by "Expressen" show that indeed one of the anchor's arms is missing.
As part of the NATO Baltic Sentry operation, the Swedish armed forces sent the corvette HMS Visby to monitor the Baltic Sea. These actions are part of additional measures taken by NATO countries in response to previous cases of underwater cable cuts, suspected to involve Russian shadow fleet ships or Chinese units.
Investigation ongoing
Regarding this incident, the Swedish prosecutor's office has launched an investigation. "We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation," said Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist in an official statement.
Sweden is cooperating with Latvia and NATO. At this point, investigators are not ruling out any hypothesis. They are considering both a deliberate act of sabotage and a random event caused by the difficult weather conditions at the time in the Baltic Sea.
