A data cable running across the land border between Sweden and Finland has been severed in two places, Aftonbladet reports.
Unlike previous similar incidents involving the severing of underwater communication lines, this one occurred on land. The Finnish police are treating the development as an act of sabotage. According to Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin, his country's authorities are taking the incident seriously as well. Six thousand households and about 100 businesses have been left without communications.
In November, an underwater cable connecting Finland and Germany, and another connecting Sweden and Lithuania, were severed. The Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3 was in that area of the Baltic Sea at the time of the rupture, and its crew has been suspected of sabotage. Its captain is known to be a Russian national. A year earlier, the Chinese container ship NewNew Polar Bear damaged the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline and two communication lines in the Baltic Sea.