Data cable running across Sweden-Finland border suffers damage

BERLIN (AP) — A data cable running across the land border between Sweden and Finland has been damaged, a company providing digital infrastructure and data communication in Northern Europe said Tuesday.

Global Connect said the internet cable was damaged in two separate places in southern Finland on Monday, affecting 6,000 private customers and 100 business customers.

“The first damage has been repaired and internet access has been mostly restored,” said Global Connect’s spokesman in Sweden, Niklas Ekström. “We are still working on fixing the second damage.”

Ekström said that one incident was related to excavation works and the second one was still being looked into.

“We have no analysis on this so far,” Ekström added.

Finland’s minister of transportation and communications, Lulu Ranne, wrote on X that “authorities are investigating the matter together with the company. We take the situation seriously.”

Police in Finland put out a brief statement Tuesday saying that they “are not currently conducting a criminal investigation into the damage caused to a fiber-optic cable between Finland and Sweden.”

The incident comes after the rupture of two data cables on the Baltic Sea bed last month. The two, one running from Finland to Germany and the other from Lithuania to Sweden, were both damaged in Swedish waters.

Finnish, Swedish and German authorities have launched investigations.

Germany’s defense minister said at the time the damage appeared to have been caused by sabotage, though there is no proof at present.