Information obtained by Latvia’s State Police currently does not indicate any connection between a vessel located in the Port of Liepāja and the damage to an optical cable in the Baltic Sea.
The State Police of Latvia reported that overnight police completed their work on the vessel that had initially been suspected of possible involvement in the cable damage.
As part of procedural actions in the criminal case, police officers inspected the vessel and its anchor, examined technical equipment and logs, and questioned several individuals. The ship’s crew cooperated with police and voluntarily provided all information required for the investigation, police said.
At present, information obtained in the criminal proceedings does not indicate a link between the specific vessel and the damage to the optical cable. At the same time, the investigation is ongoing, including efforts to determine how exactly the cable was damaged, the State Police said.
Based on the information reviewed, the vessel will no longer face restrictions on movement.
In the interests of the investigation, police declined to provide further comment.
As previously reported, an optical cable connecting Palanga (Šventoji) and Liepāja was damaged last week in the Baltic Sea near Liepāja. The damage to the communications cable has not affected consumers in either Latvia or Lithuania.
Information about the damage to a privately owned fiber-optic cable was received from Lithuania. The incident occurred in Latvia’s territorial waters on the 2nd of January.
Initial findings suggested that a possible culprit was a vessel which, according to analysis by the National Armed Forces Coast Guard Service, had passed over an inactive cable and then changed course toward the active — now damaged — cable.
In connection with the incident, the State Police opened a criminal case
under an article of the Criminal Law concerning the intentional destruction or damage of a public electronic communications network cable or its equipment.
Publicly available information indicates that the Palanga (Šventoji)–Liepāja cable has been in operation since 1995 and is owned by telecommunications operator Arelion, which belongs to Swedish pension fund–owned company Polhem Infra. The same company also owns a cable connecting Šventoji with the Swedish island of Gotland, which was damaged in spring 2025.
It has also been reported that Finnish telecommunications company Elisa detected damage to a cable on the morning of the 31st of December and informed Finnish authorities.
A patrol vessel and helicopter of the Finnish Border Guard located the suspected vessel in Finland’s exclusive economic zone and found that its anchor had been lowered into the sea.
The Finnish Border Guard ordered the vessel to stop, raise its anchor, and proceed to Finnish territorial waters. The ship is currently located in Kantvik port.
Elisa has stated that
the damaged cable did not cause communication disruptions for its customers in either Finland or Estonia.
LETA has also reported that in the early morning of the 26th of January, 2025, a subsea fiber-optic cable belonging to Latvia’s Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC) was damaged in the Baltic Sea on the Ventspils–Gotland section. The damage was detected in Sweden’s economic waters around 130 kilometers off the Latvian coast. A criminal case was also opened in Latvia in connection with that incident, and as of January 5 the investigation was still ongoing, according to the State Police.
In relation to that cable damage, Swedish authorities had detained the Malta-flagged bulk carrier “Vezhen.” The ship’s owner, Navigation Maritime Bulgares, denied intentional damage, and the Swedish Prosecution Authority later ruled out sabotage, releasing the vessel while acknowledging that it had caused the damage.
Swedish prosecutor Matts Ljungkvist explained that the cable damage resulted from a combination of adverse conditions, including weather, equipment deficiencies, and insufficient seamanship.
Repairs to the LVRTC subsea cable cost nearly 500,000 euros.
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