One of two damaged Baltic Sea cables back online, Arelion says

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By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – One of two Baltic subsea cables that were damaged earlier this month in a suspected sabotage is back online, a spokesman for operator company Arelion said.

The cable connecting Sweden and Lithuania was repaired as of Thursday and traffic had resumed at full capacity, spokesman Martin Sjogren said.

Two subsea cables — the other linking Finland and Germany — were damaged in less than 24 hours on Nov. 17-18, prompting German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius to say he assumed it was sabotage.

Undersea cables transmit nearly all the world’s internet data traffic, and are considered critical infrastructure as they connect the communication backbone between countries.

Investigators have zeroed in on Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the country sent a formal request to China seeking cooperation to help clarify what happened when the undersea cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea.

“We are cooperating with Swedish police in their investigation of our damaged cable,” Sjogren said.

“It’s very difficult to secure the entire subsea infrastructure but the international cooperation between authorities, military and companies is working very well,” he said.

Arelion, once part of telecom company Telia, owns 75,000 kilometers (46,603 miles)of fiber network.

Finland’s Cinia, which owns the other cable, has also started repair work and estimated completion by the end of this month.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen; editing by Mark Heinrich and Bill Berkrot)