STOCKHOLM, October 24. /TASS/. NATO cannot guarantee the safety of "tens of thousands of kilometers" of undersea pipelines and cables of its member states, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated this at a press conference in Stockholm.
"As we have stated again, and again, we have tens of thousands of kilometers of internet cables over gas pipelines, over power cables, over oil pipelines, crossing the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and of course, these types of undersea critical infrastructure is vulnerable. <…> There will be never any 100% guarantee," he said, adding that NATO has stepped up measures to protect the infrastructure of the alliance countries and is doing everything possible to prevent incidents.
When asked by journalists whether it is known who may be behind the damage to the Balticconnector undersea gas pipeline, Stoltenberg replied: "We haven't any final conclusion or assessment about exactly who is behind or whether it was intentional or not, but NATO, together with Finland, Estonia and Sweden, is working to establish the facts before they are established."
In turn, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that an underwater study of the pipeline confirms that the damage done to it was "purposeful."
On October 17, Swedish Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin announced damage to the undersea telecommunication cable running between Estonia and Swedish. Later, the SVT television channel reported citing data from the Estonian police that its damage was of a mechanical nature. According to preliminary assessment, it is associated with damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and the fiber optic cable between Finland and Estonia. Based on this, it is concluded that all these damages are of the same nature.
The operation of an undersea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was suspended due to a suspected leak. Finnish authorities said at a press conference on October 10 that the damage to the gas pipeline, discovered early on the morning of October 9, was likely the result of external interference. Detective Chief of the National Bureau of Investigation Timo Kilpelainen said that the damage site was located in Finland's economic zone, in the central part of the Gulf of Finland.