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White House not yet ready to speak on causes of Baltic undersea cable ruptures

Two underwater cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea on November 17 and 18

WASHINGTON, November 22. /TASS/. The US Administration is not yet ready to name reasons behind the latest ruptures of underwater telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

When asked whether the Washington administration has a prevailing theory on how the undersea cables were damaged, and whether they thought that China may have been responsible, Jean-Pierre replied: "I’m just not going to get into any type of theories from here. I will let, you know, the NSC team respond to that directly. I’m just not going to get into speculation from here."

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. The Swedish Prosecutor's Office started a preliminary investigation into the cable disruption, classifying the incident as sabotage.

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