Lithuania investigates damage to undersea cable linking Sweden

VILNIUS, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania's National Crisis Management Centre, said on Tuesday that all possible causes, including sabotage, are being investigated following Sunday's damage to the undersea cable connecting Lithuania and Sweden, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported.

"We are collecting all the data from the authorities and from our allies who are in the region and who are monitoring what actually happened at sea that morning or that night," Vitkauskas said.

According to him, it is too early to determine the nature of the damage, but experts suggest it was not related to a natural disaster or phenomenon.

Telia Lietuva, the Swedish telecom company in Lithuania, confirmed on Monday that the cable was cut at around 10:00 a.m. local time on Sunday.

"These failures are mostly related to shipping. When a ship hooks the cable, it breaks it off somewhere in a shallow place, close to the shore, by dropping anchor incorrectly," said Andrius Semeskevicius, the company's chief technology officer.

However, he noted that this case appears more serious, as the Lithuania-Sweden and Germany-Finland cables intersect in a small area of only 10 square meters. "Since both cables are damaged, it is clear that this was not an accidental dropping of one of the ship's anchors, but something more serious," he added.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said on Tuesday morning that it is premature to draw any conclusions regarding the cause of the damage. However, he noted that previous incidents involving critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea have been linked to both malicious activity and unintentional negligence.

"It is probably too early to come to any definitive conclusion on this, but of course both cases are possible," he told reporters at the Seimas.

According to the president, the country's security services are investigating the situation.