Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
Sabotage or incident - these are the hypotheses about the Bulgarian ship "Vezhen", which damaged the underwater optical fiber cable between Sweden and Latvia. One of them will be confirmed when the investigation of the Swedish prosecutor's office on suspicion of sabotage under aggravating circumstances is completed. Until then, the vessel, operated by the "Bulgarian Maritime Fleet" Shipping Company, owned by Bulgarian businessmen Kiril and Georgi Domuschievi, is under Swedish control near the naval base in Karlskrona. According to a statement from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the crew of eight Bulgarian officers and nine sailors, who are citizens of Myanmar, have not been detained.
Hybrid War
The case of "Vezhen" has been in the focus of international news for a reason. Over the past 15 months, there have been 11 significant failures of high-speed fiber optic cables, part of the critical infrastructure. Russian vessels, as well as Chinese ones, have been identified as the perpetrators. However, for the first time, suspicions fall on a vessel whose actual owners are from an EU member state. According to data published by Newsweek, however, "Vezhen" (built in a Chinese shipyard, b.a.) is owned by Hong Kong's Hai Kuo Shipping 2015B, which in turn is owned by a Chinese state-owned bank - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
The Bulgarian ship was loaded with fertilizers from the Russian port of Ust-Luga, the subject of a missile attack and drones from the Ukrainian side a week ago, as it is a key port and part of the Russian oil is loaded there. It is known that ships from the so-called "shadow fleet" of Russia, used to export oil in order to circumvent the heavy sanctions against Moscow, depart from Ust-Luga. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz linked the incident precisely to the Russian "shadow fleet": "Yesterday (the other day, b.a.) a damaged underwater cable was reported again, this shows what a threat the Russian shadow fleet is." German Foreign Minister Analene Berbock does not consider it a coincidence.
The deliberate cutting of cables is a form of hybrid warfare that includes cyberattacks, disinformation and economic destabilization. Military experts warn that damaging them could prevent Western countries from responding effectively to a potential conflict, as communication between NATO member states is hampered. It is no coincidence that the Alliance sent patrol ships to the area after the incident with the "Vežen", and Latvian divers are examining the site of the damage caused by the ship's anchor. Due to the series of incidents, NATO is strengthening its presence in the Baltic with the "Baltic Watch" mission to prevent attempts to sabotage underwater energy and communication cables, as well as pipelines. Maritime patrols, aircraft and drones monitor ships that are dragging cables or have missing anchors, and satellite navigation provides comprehensive information on vessel movements and weather conditions.
The BMF denies intent - the weather is to blame
The BMF leadership confirmed the damaged cable, but publicly denied intent, blaming bad weather. Although the ship was new - two years old, built in a Chinese shipyard, there were no indicators on the bridge for an anchor failure. The weather conditions were bad and there was no opportunity for a sailor from the crew to go on deck and check what happened to the anchor, which together with the chain weighs over 7 tons. According to the BMF's explanations, it "leaked" and dragged along the bottom. Due to the bad weather - strong waves, waves over 2.5 meters, the crew could not go out on deck and check what was happening.
Ruslan Trad, a researcher at the Atlantic Council of the United States, commented to Deutsche Welle that he had no data on such waves and such strong winds at that time. "We have no data on waves higher than a meter or so, and on weather problems to the extent that the anchor shifted and snagged a buried cable (armored, buried at least a meter deep, b.a.). The cables are part of European security, we know where they run - they are mapped (on nautical charts as zones prohibited from dropping anchor, b.a.), such an extremely important cable does not break just like that." He has examined images in which the anchor of "Vezhen" is visibly damaged. Trad recalled cases with both a Chinese and a Russian ship that dragged the anchor in the same way. "Even if it doesn't break, the cable gets damaged, which also causes communication problems," he said.
This is not the first incident involving BMF ships. In late 2023, nearly 300 kg of cocaine was found on the ship "Verila" and the vessel was detained in Ireland, and in 2024, Somali pirates hijacked the cargo ship "Rouen".
There is no consensus on television and social networks whether the crew felt the vibrations from the dropped anchor. In front of Nova TV, Capt. Vasil Danov, who denied sabotage, stated that "if the anchor leaks, it will be heard - "Vezhen" is a large ship, it cannot be tossed by the waves". Others assume that due to the bad weather it may not be felt, and still others - that the anchor may have been dropped intentionally by one person.
According to lawyer Ivaylo Dermendzhiev, a specialist in the field of international commercial arbitration, "the Bulgarian state must intervene". However, he did not answer a question from Deutsche Welle about what he meant by the call for "intervention". The European Commission refuses to comment on the case due to the ongoing investigation, and the Bulgarian authorities are also abstaining. "We Continue the Change", part of the PP-DB coalition, will, however, request a hearing from the Foreign Minister and the Minister of Transport - Georg Georgiev and Grozdan Karadjov. "We are very worried - they are arresting a Bulgarian ship, again linking us to hybrid Russian operations. In our opinion, this is a big problem for Bulgaria's reputation," said PP co-chair Kiril Petkov.
Reputational damage
So far, there has been no comment from the Domuschievi brothers, who privatized BMF Shipping 17 years ago. Today, the company operates over 70 vessels. When the cocaine was discovered on the ship "Verila", as well as the capture of "Ruen" by pirates, Kiril Domuschiev publicly commented on both cases, but now the owners prefer to remain silent.
"The political coloring of what happened has an extremely negative impact not only on the company, but also on the whole of Bulgaria", said the executive director of BMF, Captain Alexander Kalchev. Confirmation of the sabotage hypothesis would cause reputational and financial damage to the Bulgarian billionaires, as Forbes announced the Domuschiev brothers - because of their fortune of $2.1 billion each. After privatizing the veterinary products factory "Biovet" a quarter of a century ago, they developed production in Europe, and in 2005 they started in the USA, where they own factories and research centers in six states.
Incident or sabotage - the investigation by the Swedish services will show. Now at the anchor of "Vezhen" The reputation of Domuschievi is strengthened, as is the image of Bulgaria as a Euro-Atlantic partner.