BCS East-West Interlink - Cable Break

In the early hours of 17 November 2024, the BCS East-West Interlink submarine telecom cable was severed in the Baltic Sea. The roughly 218 km cable, owned by Arelion and operated commercially by Telia Lithuania, runs between Sventoji in Lithuania and Katthammarsvik on the Swedish island of Gotland. The operator reported a fault on Sunday morning, describing a full break rather than partial damage. The cut came roughly a day before the C-Lion1 cable between Finland and Germany was severed in the same region, prompting European officials to suspect coordinated activity.

Suspicion quickly fell on the Chinese-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, which had departed the Russian port of Ust-Luga on 15 November carrying fertilizer. Vessel-tracking analysis placed the ship over the cable routes at the relevant times. Investigators alleged the vessel dragged its anchor across roughly 160 km of seabed, severing the Sweden-Lithuania cable, then later the C-Lion1 link. The ship was subsequently halted, and on 19 December 2024 Swedish police, as reported by CNN, boarded it as part of the probe. Network measurements published by RIPE Labs found internet traffic largely rerouted around the damage, with only minor latency increases and no significant packet loss.

The break is treated as suspected sabotage and remains under investigation by Lithuanian, Swedish and Finnish authorities, coordinated via Eurojust. The leading hypothesis is anchor-drag by the Yi Peng 3, a vessel that had left a Russian port, with some Western officials speculating about Russian intelligence involvement. However, attribution is not conclusive: it is unclear whether the anchor was deployed deliberately or accidentally, and intent has never been proven. The near-simultaneous C-Lion1 cut heightened sabotage concerns, but the evidence supports suspicion rather than confirmed culpability.