Norwegian police said on Friday they had detained and boarded a Norwegian ship with an all-Russian crew on suspicion of involvement in causing damage to a telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea, Reuters reported.
The ship, called the Silver Dania, was detained at the request of Latvian authorities and with the help of the Norwegian coast guard, police in the northern Norwegian city of Tromsø said.
"The ship is suspected of being involved in a serious damage to a fiber-optic cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden," police said in a statement.
Sweden and Latvia launched an investigation on Sunday into alleged sabotage of a cable connecting the two countries, and Swedish police later seized and boarded the Maltese-flagged Bulgarian ship "Vezhen", suspected of causing the damage.
We recall that the shipowner Bulgarian Navy categorically denied the version of intentional damage to the cable, but did not rule out that the ship's anchor had severed the cable due to bad weather, as its retaining mechanism was damaged during a storm.
A Norwegian police spokesman clarified that the seizures of two ships were related to the same incident.
The Baltic Sea region has been on high alert after a series of disruptions to power cables, telecommunications links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the NATO military alliance has recently increased its presence with frigates, aircraft and naval drones.
The ship, which was detained in Norway on Friday, was Norwegian-owned and flagged and was sailing from St. Petersburg in the Baltic Sea to Murmansk in the Russian Arctic, police said.
The owner and crew of the Silver Dania had voluntarily agreed to follow a coast guard vessel to port, police added.