The data cable between Sweden and Lithuania went out on Sunday morning, reports the Lithuanian public service company LRT.
It is unclear whether the cable has broken or just been damaged, but the fault was reported after news about the Finnish data cable.
The fault has, according to Andrius Semeskevicius, Telia's technical manager in Lithuania, not caused major disruptions to the country's data traffic.
East of Öland
The Finnish-owned data cable to Germany has, according to Hufvudstadsbladet, gone out east of southern Öland in the Swedish economic zone.
The cable break was discovered during the night to Monday. However, it has not led to major disruptions of internet traffic in Finland and is unlikely to do so.
It is still unclear why the cable broke, but the state-owned data communication company Cinia states, according to Hufvudstadsbladet, "that it does not happen without external influence in these waters".
This could mean bottom trawling and anchoring, but also sabotage. However, no signs of this have been found.
"The government is closely following the development in light of the serious security situation and is in contact with its authorities. It is absolutely central to clarify why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that do not work", writes Carl-Oskar Bohlin, minister for civil defense, in a comment to TT.
The Defense: Good situational awareness
The Swedish Defense Forces state for SVT that they are following the development and have a good situational awareness.
Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen has discussed the cable break with her German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.
”Our European security is not only threatened by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, but also by hybrid warfare from malicious actors. Protecting our shared critical infrastructure is crucial for our security and resilience in our societies”, the two write in a statement.
A repair ship is on its way to the site from French Calais, reports Cinia. It is unclear when the cable can be operational again, it usually takes the company between 5 and 15 days to repair submarine cables.
The Finnish Security Police (Skyppo) reports to Yle that around 200 submarine cables break every year, often due to human error.
The current cable is approximately 117 miles long.
