Chinese Ship Surrounded Over Alleged Undersea Internet Cable Sabotage

A Chinese ship was surrounded by European vessels due to suspicions it attempted to sabotage fiber-optic undersea cables in the Baltic Sea.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Yi Peng 3, a commercial carrier filled with Russian goods, dragged an anchor over 100 miles across Northern Europe's Baltic seabed. The 224-meter ship departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15 loaded with Russia-produced fertilizer. The investigation reportedly focuses on whether the ship's crew was directed to drag the anchor to intentionally damage the cables.

According to WSJ's sources, the owner of the Chinese ship, Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, is cooperating with the investigation. 

The news comes after cables connecting Lithuania and Sweden as well as Finland and Germany were slashed on Nov. 19.

The Kremlin denied any involvement in the incident in a statement to the WSJ, calling the claims “absurd, unsubstantiated accusations.”

But Kpler, an analytics company that focuses on shipping, told the WSJ that due to “the mild weather conditions and manageable wave heights, the likelihood of accidental anchor dragging appears minimal.” The WSJ said that sources familiar with the investigation found that damage to the ship's hull and its anchor were consistent with being dragged across the bottom of the ocean and with severed cables. 

However, Katja Bego, a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, told Reuters: "Investigating incidents like this can take a long time, and even if the culprit is found, as appears to be the case here, proving intent is incredibly difficult."