Bulgarian ship under scrutiny over Baltic cable damage

The Vezhen ship, owned by Navigation Maritime Bulgare, has come under scrutiny after it might have accidentally damaged the underwater cable connecting Sweden and Latvia. Quoted by the Reuters, Aleksandar Kalchev, the head of the Bulgarian transport company, emphasized that it was not an intentional action.

According to Kalchev, one of the anchors may have dropped to the bottom due to strong winds, which might have caused it to strike the fibre optic cable. On Saturday evening, Swedish authorities detained the Bulgarian container ship, which sails under the flag of Malta. The Vezhen ship, sailing from a Russian port, is currently near Karlskrona, off the southeastern coast of Sweden. Photos published by "Expressen" show that indeed one of the anchor's arms is missing.

The Swedish armed forces, as part of the NATO Baltic Sentry operation, sent the corvette HMS Visby to monitor the Baltic Sea. These actions are part of additional measures taken by NATO countries in response to previous cases of underwater cable cuts, suspected to involve Russian shadow fleet ships or Chinese units.

Investigation ongoing

Regarding this incident, the Swedish prosecutor's office has launched an investigation. "We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation," said Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist in an official statement.

Sweden is cooperating with Latvia and NATO. At this point, investigators are not ruling out any hypothesis. Consideration is being given to a deliberate act of sabotage, as well as a random event, caused by the difficult weather conditions at the time in the Baltic Sea.