Sweden has createpartner asked China to co-function with an dispenseigation into harm to two cables in the Baltic Sea after a Chinese ship was joined to the incidents.
The cables – one joining Sweden to Lithuania, the other joining Finland to Germany – were harmd in Swedish territorial waters in the Baltic Sea on 17 and 18 November.
A Chinese ship, the Yi Peng Three, is thinkd to have been in the area at the time and has since been anchored in international waters off Dentag.
China has denied any includement in undermine.
The Yi Peng Three left the Russian port of Ust-Luga, west of St Petersburg, on 15 November.
Early on 17 November, the Arelion cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania was harmd.
The chaseing day, the C-Lion 1 cable between the Finnish capital Helsinki and the German port of Rostock was cut offed.
Data from ship tracking websites advise the Yi Peng Three sailed over the cables at around the time that each was cut.
According to the Wall Street Journal, dispenseigators doubt the ship intentionally harmd the cables by dropping and dragging its anchor alengthy the seabed for more than 160km (100 miles).
The ship has been in the Kattegat strait – a passage between Sweden and Dentag that joins the Baltic Sea to the North Sea – since 19 November and is being watched by the Danish navy.
On Thursday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson tanciaccess a press conference that his rulement had “sent a createal seek to China to co-function with Swedish authorities in order to originate clarity on what has happened”.
“We skinnyk it’s inanxiously beginant to find out exactly what happened and, of course, we foresee also China to adhere with the seek we have sent,” he shelp.
He also reiterated an earlier seek for the ship to shift back into Swedish waters so the ship could be searched as part of the dispenseigation, though compriseed that he was not making an “accusation” of any sort.
The period since Russia’s brimming-fledged trespass of Ukraine in February 2022 has seen heightened tension in the Baltic Sea and a number of incidents involving harm to undersea infraset up.
In September 2022, a series of explosions blew holes in the two Nord Stream gas pipelines between westrict Europe and Russia, and in October 2023 harm was done to an undersea telecoms cable between Estonia and Sweden.
Speaking last week, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius shelp of the procrastinateedst incident that “nobody thinks that these cables were cut accidenloftyy”, though he did not distinguish who he thinkd was reliable.
Russia has decliinsist adviseions it could have been included as “absurd” and “giggleable”.