Finnish PM warns against premature conclusions on submarine cable damage

HELSINKI, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo cautioned on Tuesday against drawing premature conclusions about the cause of the submarine cable breakdown between Finland and Germany.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a seminar, Orpo stated that he would not draw any conclusions at this point, since it was not yet possible to determine if a sabotage was involved.

On Monday, Finnish state-owned data transmission company Cinia reported that the C-Lion1 submarine cable, which links Helsinki to Rostock, Germany, was out of service due to a fault.

Timo Kilpelainen, head of the Investigation Department at the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, said during a press conference on Tuesday that Finnish and Swedish police would jointly investigate the incident. He noted that the damage to the C-Lion1 cable was located just several dozen nautical miles from where the Lithuania-Sweden cable was damaged last Sunday.

Ari-Jussi Knaapila, CEO of Cinia, told the press conference that a repair ship dispatched from France is expected to reach the site of the C-Lion1 damage by Sunday.

The C-Lion1 cable spans 1,173 km and was completed in 2016. Owned and operated by Cinia, it connects Finland and other Nordic countries to Central Europe and Asia, serving as a critical data transmission link in the region.