STOCKHOLM, November 8. /TASS/. Finland continues to investigate the circumstances of the damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline at the bottom of the Baltic Sea and has notified Russia about this incident, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said on Wednesday.
"We are still in the process of the investigation. It is now [being] done on the level of the authorities with our international partners. What comes to Russia, I can comment that we have notified the authorities about the incident through diplomatic channels," Valtonen said replying a question from reporters at the joint press conference with her Swedish counterpart Tobias Billstrom. The press conference was broadcast on the website of the Finnish Foreign Ministry.
Valtonen also noted that "what comes to China we have been promised again through diplomatic channels full cooperation on the investigation and our authorities are directly in contact with Chinese (authorities)."
Touching upon the damage to the Russian telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea, the Finnish minister indicated that Russia did not turn to Finland for help in investigating the incident, Reuters reported.
In turn, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Sweden is carefully monitoring what is happening on its territory and in its surroundings.
"The damage [of the Russian cable] occurred in relative proximity both in terms of geography and in time [to the damage of cables between Estonia and Sweden and also between Estonia and Finland] so we need to wait for the results of the investigations before we can conclude on additional links between these events," he said.
Earlier, the press service of the Ministry of Economy of Finland reported that the Baltika communication cable of Russian company Rostelecom, which runs in the economic zone of Finland, was damaged in the Gulf of Finland. As the press service of Rostelecom noted, the cable damage in the Baltic Sea was recorded on October 7, 2023 at 11:30 p.m. Moscow time (08:30 p.m. GMT), and the place of the cable damage is located at a distance of 28 km from the section of the Balticconnector gas pipeline damaged on October 8.
About damage to pipeline, cables
Operations on the Balticconnector underwater gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia were 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. The operation of the underwater communication cable, which runs near the gas pipeline, was also disrupted. Its damage was discovered around the same time as the Balticconnector leak.
On October 17, Swedish Minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oskar Bohlin announced damage to the undersea telecommunication cable running between Estonia and Sweden. 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.