Two Baltic Sea communication cables were taken offline

Two submarine communication cables in the Baltic Sea have been disconnected from the Internet, and at least one appears to have been physically cut. CNN received confirmation from the local telecommunications company that the cable between Lithuania and Sweden was disconnected on Sunday morning. The second cable, 60 to 65 miles away from the first, connects the lines of communication between Finland and Germany. The cause of the outage has not yet been determined, but officials suspect “intentional damage.”

The outage follows a September warning from the US about an increased risk of “destruction” of undersea cables. That came after a joint investigation by public broadcasters from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland that Russia has deployed a network of spy ships in Nordic waters. They were reportedly part of a plan designed to destroy power lines (and wind farms).

This does not leave European countries with no internet connection at all, as data is usually transmitted over multiple cables to avoid over-reliance on one.

Cinia, the Finnish state-owned company that oversees the second cable, said it was not yet clear what caused the outage as they had not yet physically inspected it. However, the sudden outage is reported to suggest that it was, once again, destroyed by an outside force.

The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany issued a joint statement on Monday. They wrote: “We are very concerned about the severed submarine cable connecting Finland and Germany in the Baltic Sea. “The fact that an incident like this raises suspicions of intentional injury speaks volumes about the changing times of our times. A thorough investigation is underway. Our European security is not only under the threat of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from the hybrid wars of brutal actors. Protecting our shared critical infrastructure is critical to our security and the resilience of our communities.”

The Lithuania-Sweden cable, which carries about a third of Lithuania’s internet capacity, is expected to be repaired “in the next few weeks,” and the weather may determine the exact time.