The vessel Yi Peng Three left the Russian port of Ust-Luga, west of St. Petersburg, on November 15.
On the morning of November 17, the Arelion cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania was damaged.
The next day, the C-Lion 1 cable between the Finnish capital of Helsinki and the German port of Rostock was severed.
Data from ship-tracking websites suggests that the Yi Peng Three was sailing through the cables around the time each was cut.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Investigators suspect that the ship intentionally damaged the cables, external dropping and dragging the anchor over the seabed for more than 160 km (100 mi).
The ship has been in the Kattegat Strait – the passage between Sweden and Denmark that connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea – since November 19 and is under the supervision of the Danish Navy.
On Thursday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson said at a press conference that his government “sent an official request to China to cooperate with the Swedish authorities to find out what happened.”
“We think it is extremely important to find out exactly what happened, and of course we expect China to also comply with the request we sent,” he said.
He also repeated an earlier request that the ship be returned to Swedish waters so it could be searched as part of the investigation, but added that he was not making “accusations”.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, tensions rose in the Baltic Sea and there were a number of incidents involving damage to underwater infrastructure.
In September 2022, a series of explosions took place blew holes in two Nord Streams gas pipelines between Western Europe and Russia, and in October 2023 damage was done submarine telecommunications cable between Estonia and Sweden.
Speaking last week, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said of the latest incident that “nobody believes that these cables were cut by accident,” although he did not specify who he believed was responsible.
Russia has dismissed suggestions that it may have been involved as “absurd” and “ridiculous”.
