Sweden is asking a Chinese vessel to return to Swedish waters to help facilitate an investigation into recent breaches of undersea fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Tuesday, but stressed he was not making any accusations.
Two subsea cables, one linking Finland and Germany and the other connecting Sweden to Lithuania, were damaged in less than 24 hours from Nov. 17 to 18, prompting German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to say he assumed it was sabotage.
Sweden, Germany and Lithuania all launched criminal investigations last week, zeroing in on Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, which left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15. MarineTraffic data showed that the ship's coordinates corresponded to the time and place of the breaches.
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