Norwegian police said they have seized a locally owned ship with an all-Russian crew that is suspected of being involved in sabotaging an underwater telecoms cable in the Baltic Sea linking Sweden and Latvia.
Police in the city of Tromso said on January 31 that the Norwegian-registered and Norwegian-owned ship Silver Dania was detained based on a legal request from Latvian authorities and an order from the Nord-Troms and Senja District Court in Norway.
The ship is the second to be seized in the past week in connection with the damaging of the cable. Swedish police detained the Maltese-flagged cargo ship Vezhen on suspicion it caused the damage.
"There is suspicion that the ship has been involved in serious damage to a fiber cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden," the police said in a statement.
"The police are conducting an operation on the ship to search, conduct interviews, and secure evidence."
Several undersea telecommunications and power cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Experts and politicians have blamed vessels in Russia's so-called shadow fleet of aging oil tankers. The Kremlin denies any involvement.
SEE ALSO: Baltic Sea Incidents Put Spotlight On Russia's 'Shadow' FleetWith the recent spate of sabotage events in the region, NATO and EU leaders agreed to launch a monitoring mission of the Baltic Sea.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said that "such hostile actions" will not go unanswered, promising to strengthen NATO's military presence in the region.
The first major incidence of sabotage of infrastructure occurred in September 2022 when a series of underwater blasts ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines built to carry Russian gas to Europe. The cause has yet to be determined.
An undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was shut down in October 2023 after it was damaged by the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship.
The most recent incident occurred January 26 with the severing of the cable linking telecommunications between Sweden and Lativa.
A month earlier, in another incident, the Estlink 2 electricity cable and four telecom cables linking Finland and Estonia were damaged.
That came just weeks after two telecom cables in Swedish waters were severed on November 17-18.
Suspicion over the December 25 incident has fallen on the Eagle S, a Cook Island-flagged oil tanker believed to be part of Russia’s "shadow fleet." Investigators suspect the cables were damaged when the tanker dragged its anchor over them.