Swedish investigators are looking into the potential involvement of the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 in the damage to two communication cables in the Baltic Sea.
The ship, which was en route from Russia to Egypt, passed near the Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German cables on Sunday and Monday—around the same time the cables were damaged, according to data from the maritime tracking group MarineTraffic.
Sources familiar with the investigation told Financial Times that Sweden is examining what role the Yi Peng 3 may have played in the cable damage incidents. “The Swedes are paying close attention to the Chinese vessel,” one source said.
The Swedish government declined to comment on the ship’s involvement, but one official stated that the police investigation would review its movements in cooperation with the coast guard and military.
The Yi Peng 3 is owned by Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, based near the port city of Ningbo in eastern China. A representative from Ningbo Yipeng told Financial Times that “the government asked the company to cooperate with the investigation,” but declined to answer further questions.
Earlier this week, it was reported that a communication cable belonging to the Finnish company Cinia, which runs along the Baltic Sea floor and connects Finland to Germany, had been damaged. The nearly 1,200-kilometer cable is the only direct communication link between Finland and Central Europe and runs near other critical infrastructure, including gas pipelines and electricity cables.
