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I'm Finnish. I don't recall ever hearing about a cable being cut in the Baltic Sea before 2022, and based on quick Googling, cannot find any reports of such inc

I'm Finnish. I don't recall ever hearing about a cable being cut in the Baltic Sea before 2022, and based on quick Googling, cannot find any reports of such incidents either. And now they occur several times per year. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

INTPenis 2y ago
The finnish security police themselves have said that these cuts happen about 200 times every year without any suspicion of sabotage. My personal opinion so far is that this whole thing is teetering between media frenzy and actual issue. Edit: Have to correct myself. Googling now it seems all traces of this statement have been scrubbed, and instead I find that the International Cable Protection Committe (ICPC) claim about 200 cable issues a year WORLD WIDE. So maybe the Finnish security police had misspoken and have now retracted this statement from all media. Either way, I have worked with internet since 2004 and I remember as early as 2004 dealing with companies in Sweden who had boats and other equipment just to install and maintain cables across the baltic and atlantic. It's something that requires non-stop maintenance, regardless of the security situation in the world. One also has to ask if it's productive to cut these cables when 1) it disrupts nothing on a grand scale, and 2) if it were to disrupt anything it also means they cannot perform other attacks.
- tucnak 2y ago
  > My personal opinion so far is that this whole thing is teetering between media frenzy and actual issue. Welcome to hybrid warfare! This is the point.
- Sharlin 2y ago
  Hah, yes, there are definitely not 100 to 200 breakages in the Baltic Sea alone :D
- clown_strike 2y ago
  > One also has to ask if it's productive to cut these cables when 1) it disrupts nothing on a grand scale, and 2) if it were to disrupt anything it also means they cannot perform other attacks. Part of a balanced DoS. The article is about cables but Russia has also been jamming satellite beams and shelling ground stations since the start of the Ukraine conflict, and they (IIRC) even developed a missile with a nuclear payload to take out satellites kinetically.
diggan 2y ago
> I'm Finnish. I don't recall ever hearing about a cable being cut in the Baltic Sea before 2022 I'm Swedish, if that matters, and recall reading about (accidental) cable breakages all the way back to at least 2010 sometime. As mentioned elsewhere, there are between 100-200 cable breakages annually > Do cables break? > Yes! Cable faults are common. On average, there are over 100 each year. > Unintentional damage from fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors account for two-thirds of all cable faults. https://blog.telegeography.com/what-happens-when-submarine-cables-break https://blog.telegeography.com/what-happens-when-submarine-c... It seems like the media have ramped up reporting on cable breaks, because of the context, but seemingly none of them have been confirmed to be intentional, at least as far as I know. But I agree that it seems highly suspicious, also the recent water-supply sabotage on Gotland seems related to this all (https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vz2em4/misstankt-sabotage-pa-gotland-sapo-bekraftar-incident https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vz2em4/misstankt-sabota...)
- Sharlin 2y ago
  > As mentioned elsewhere, there are between 100-200 cable breakages annually World wide. A bit different from Baltic Sea only.
  - diggan 2y ago
    Sure, but if 100-200 happens globally, at least one of those are likely to have been in the Baltic Sea.
    - Sharlin 2y ago
      I meant to comment that I doubt the Baltic Sea sees on the order of 1% of world's total shipping tonnage, but actually it seems that is roughly the correct figure. The Bornholm Cable seems to have been cut several times in the 2000s, but I can't find anything about any other breakages before 2022.
rixed 2y ago
You've never heard about it because it's not newsworthy. You should rather wonder why do you hear so much of it now.
- Sharlin 2y ago
  There's an obvious selection effect, yes. But it is interesting that no news or technical reports or anything can be found about any earlier breakages.
  - rixed 2y ago
    When I did look for it not so long ago I was able to find several publications with pre-2023 statistics, which ranged from 100 to 500 per years. For instance, from https://www.iscpc.org/publications/ https://www.iscpc.org/publications/ you can find https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=138 https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=138 which has statistics over the years by source of damage (spoiler: no russian spy nor UFOs)

INTPenis 2y ago

The finnish security police themselves have said that these cuts happen about 200 times every year without any suspicion of sabotage. My personal opinion so far is that this whole thing is teetering between media frenzy and actual issue. Edit: Have to correct myself. Googling now it seems all traces of this statement have been scrubbed, and instead I find that the International Cable Protection Committe (ICPC) claim about 200 cable issues a year WORLD WIDE. So maybe the Finnish security police had misspoken and have now retracted this statement from all media. Either way, I have worked with internet since 2004 and I remember as early as 2004 dealing with companies in Sweden who had boats and other equipment just to install and maintain cables across the baltic and atlantic. It's something that requires non-stop maintenance, regardless of the security situation in the world. One also has to ask if it's productive to cut these cables when 1) it disrupts nothing on a grand scale, and 2) if it were to disrupt anything it also means they cannot perform other attacks.

tucnak 2y ago
> My personal opinion so far is that this whole thing is teetering between media frenzy and actual issue. Welcome to hybrid warfare! This is the point.
Sharlin 2y ago
Hah, yes, there are definitely not 100 to 200 breakages in the Baltic Sea alone :D
clown_strike 2y ago
> One also has to ask if it's productive to cut these cables when 1) it disrupts nothing on a grand scale, and 2) if it were to disrupt anything it also means they cannot perform other attacks. Part of a balanced DoS. The article is about cables but Russia has also been jamming satellite beams and shelling ground stations since the start of the Ukraine conflict, and they (IIRC) even developed a missile with a nuclear payload to take out satellites kinetically.

diggan 2y ago

> I'm Finnish. I don't recall ever hearing about a cable being cut in the Baltic Sea before 2022 I'm Swedish, if that matters, and recall reading about (accidental) cable breakages all the way back to at least 2010 sometime. As mentioned elsewhere, there are between 100-200 cable breakages annually > Do cables break? > Yes! Cable faults are common. On average, there are over 100 each year. > Unintentional damage from fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors account for two-thirds of all cable faults. https://blog.telegeography.com/what-happens-when-submarine-cables-break https://blog.telegeography.com/what-happens-when-submarine-c... It seems like the media have ramped up reporting on cable breaks, because of the context, but seemingly none of them have been confirmed to be intentional, at least as far as I know. But I agree that it seems highly suspicious, also the recent water-supply sabotage on Gotland seems related to this all (https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vz2em4/misstankt-sabotage-pa-gotland-sapo-bekraftar-incident https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vz2em4/misstankt-sabota...)

Sharlin 2y ago
> As mentioned elsewhere, there are between 100-200 cable breakages annually World wide. A bit different from Baltic Sea only.
- diggan 2y ago
  Sure, but if 100-200 happens globally, at least one of those are likely to have been in the Baltic Sea.
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    I meant to comment that I doubt the Baltic Sea sees on the order of 1% of world's total shipping tonnage, but actually it seems that is roughly the correct figure. The Bornholm Cable seems to have been cut several times in the 2000s, but I can't find anything about any other breakages before 2022.

rixed 2y ago

You've never heard about it because it's not newsworthy. You should rather wonder why do you hear so much of it now.

Sharlin 2y ago
There's an obvious selection effect, yes. But it is interesting that no news or technical reports or anything can be found about any earlier breakages.
- rixed 2y ago
  When I did look for it not so long ago I was able to find several publications with pre-2023 statistics, which ranged from 100 to 500 per years. For instance, from https://www.iscpc.org/publications/ https://www.iscpc.org/publications/ you can find https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=138 https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=138 which has statistics over the years by source of damage (spoiler: no russian spy nor UFOs)