An unexplained fault in an undersea telecommunications cable linking Finland and Germany has disrupted communication services, the company that runs the link said Monday. The C-Lion1 cable that connects Helsinki to Rostock in Germany was built and is operated by Cinia, a state-controlled Finnish company. Covering a distance of nearly 1,200 kilometers (730 miles), the cable is the only direct connection of its kind between Finland and central Europe and it runs alongside other key pieces of infrastructure, including gas pipelines and power cables.
It is unclear what caused the fault – Cinia said in a statement that it is still investigating the issue. The malfunction comes just weeks after the United States warned that it had detected increased Russian military activity around key undersea cables. Two US officials told in September that the US believed Russia was now more likely to carry out potential sabotage operations on these critical pieces of infrastructure.
The warning came after a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, which reported in April that Russia had a fleet of suspected spy ships operating in Nordic waters as part of a program of potential sabotage of underwater cables and wind farms in the region.
