US allies in Europe have accused Russia of “escalating hybrid activities” against NATO and EU countries after cutting two data cables in the Baltic Sea.
The announcement comes as Moscow says Ukrainian forces fired six US-made missiles into Russian territory on Tuesday. Two days ago, underwater cables connecting Finland to Germany and Sweden to Lithuania were cut, according to Reuters.
“No one believes that these wires were accidentally cut,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was quoted as saying by Reuters on Tuesday. This is sabotage.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski reportedly added, “If Russia does not stop acts of sabotage in Europe, Warsaw will close the rest of its consulates in Poland.”
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The C-Lion1 telecommunications cable is laid in the Baltic Sea near Helsinki, Finland in October 2015. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images)
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement saying Moscow’s “increasing hybrid activities against NATO and EU countries … are unprecedented in their nature and scale.” Examples are, creating significant security risks.”
However, Tuesday’s statement did not hold Moscow directly responsible for the loss of the cable.
“To meet this historic challenge, we are committed to uniting with our European and transatlantic partners to think and act big on European security,” the statement added. “European countries must play an even greater role in ensuring our own security together with our transatlantic and global partners.”
Finnish state-controlled data services provider Senia said the severed data cable was discovered on Monday in the C-Lion1 cable, which runs about 750 miles from the Finnish capital Helsinki to the German port city of Rostock.
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Germany and Finland say they are “gravely concerned” that an undersea telecommunications cable connecting the countries has been severed. (Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images)
According to Finnish public broadcaster YLE, C-Lion1, launched in 2016, is Finland’s only data communications cable that runs directly from the Nordic country to Central Europe.
“The data cable between Finland and Germany was damaged and the service [was] “Swedish authorities are investigating because the site is in Swedish waters,” a senior European official told Fox News.
The foreign ministries of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that the loss comes at a time when “our European security is threatened not only by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also by a hybrid war of malicious elements.” There is also danger.”
The statement said countries are investigating the incident, and that it is important to protect such “critical infrastructure”.
Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin is shown here, has denied sabotaging infrastructure in Europe, according to Reuters. (Gavrell Gregorou/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
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“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional harm speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” the two countries added.
Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom, Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
