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Sweden’s PM warns against prematurely judging Baltic cables rupture as sabotage

According to Ulf Kristersson, the cables will be subjected to a thorough examination by national police and foreign partners

STOCKHOLM, November 20. /TASS/. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it is too early to label the disruption of telecom cables under the Baltic Sea as sabotage.

"We assume that this could well be deliberate sabotage, but we don't know anything yet, and I'm not going to speculate on that," he said on SVT television.

According to the official, the cables will be subjected to a thorough examination by national police and foreign partners.

"We live at a time where you have to take every such risk very seriously. We have seen sabotage before, so we take it very seriously," Kristersson said.

Two underwater cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea on November 17 and 18. One connected Germany and Finland, and the other Sweden and Lithuania. The first cable runs along the Nord Stream pipeline. Its failure was reported by the Finnish government-owned telecom operator Cinia. According to the company, the repair of the cable could take from 5 to 15 days. The German and Finnish foreign ministries in a joint statement on Monday expressed concern over the damage and said a thorough investigation was underway. The damage to the second cable was later reported by the Swedish telecom company Telia.

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