The Swedish coastguard announced on Friday that it was stepping up surveillance of maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea.
The decision follows the rupture of two underwater telecommunications cables belonging to the Finnish network operator Fingrid in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia earlier this week.
The fault was detected on Wednesday afternoon. The authorities have launched an investigation and a senior Fingrid official has indicated that the possibility of sabotage has not been ruled out.
Tighter controls on ships in the Baltic Sea involve the deployment of ships and aircraft to monitor maritime traffic.
Submarine cables are essential for energy and data connections, but they are highly vulnerable and therefore a potential target for sabotage. There have already been several incidents in the Baltic Sea since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Last year, for example, two fibre optic cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea: one between Sweden and Lithuania and the other between Finland and Germany.
The cause of this week's incident has not yet been established, but the Swedish authorities suspect that the Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3 was sailing close to where the cables were damaged.
