STOCKHOLM — The Danish military said on Wednesday that it was staying close to a Chinese ship currently sitting idle in Danish waters, days after two fiber-optic data telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were severed.
Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday, with a Danish navy patrol ship at anchor nearby, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data showed.
“The Danish Defence can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said in a post on social media platform X, adding it had no further comments.
It is rare for Denmark’s military to comment publicly on individual vessels traveling in Danish waters. It did not mention the cable breaches or say why it was staying with the ship.
The Chinese ship left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on November 15 and was in the areas where the cable damages occurred, according to traffic data, which showed other ships to also have been in the areas.
One cable running between Sweden and Lithuania was cut on Sunday, and another one between Finland and Germany was severed less than 24 hours later.
The breaches happened in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone, and Swedish prosecutors started a preliminary investigation Tuesday on suspicion of possible sabotage.
Swedish Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin told Reuters on Tuesday that the country’s armed forces and coast guard had picked up ship movements that corresponded with the interruption of two telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea.
A Chinese government spokesperson told a daily news briefing on Wednesday that it always required its vessels to abide by relevant laws and regulations.
“We also attach great importance to the protection of seabed infrastructure and, together with the international community, we are actively promoting the construction and protection of submarine cables and other global information infrastructures,” the spokesperson said.
Russia dismissed on Wednesday any suggestion that it had been involved in damaging the two cables.
European governments accused Russia on Tuesday of escalating hybrid attacks on Ukraine’s Western allies, but they stopped short of directly accusing Russia of destroying the cables.
Asked about the matter on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a regular news briefing: “It is quite absurd to continue to blame Russia for everything without any reason.”
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