Putin press secretary: Kremlin has no info on communications cable damage
In an interview with Russian state media, Vladimir Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that the Kremlin has no info regarding a Russian undersea communications cable in the Gulf of Finland being damaged.
"We have no information about that," Peskov said.
A Russian vessel is currently in the Gulf of Finland carrying out repairs on a communications cable owned by Russia's Rostelecom and partly located in Finland's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which was reported to Finland as damaged on October 12, Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment announced Monday.
Following negotiations between the Russian state-owned telecommunications operator and the Finnish ministry, the Russian salvage and rescue vessel Spasatel Karev began repairs on Rostelecom's Baltica cable, an approximately 1,000-kilometer-long communications cable connecting St. Petersburg and the Baltic coastal enclave of Kaliningrad, according to a press release.
Peskov likewise refused to confirm any notices regarding the Russian vessel's work.
Putin's spokesperson also claimed that Russia could consider the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines a motive for declaring war.
While official investigations into the incident remain underway in Sweden, Denmark and Germany, many analysts find that Russia itself may be behind the 2022 sabotaging of the twin Nord Stream pipelines.
Rostelecom: Cable damage detected right before Balticconnector incident
In a recent statement, Rostelecom claimed that damage to their own Baltika telecommunications cable occurred on at 11:30 p.m. Moscow time on October 7 – the day before the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was damaged – and just 28 kilometers away.
The Russian state-owned telecommunications operator said that the Spasatel Karev had begun repairs on the communications cable on Sunday already, and added that repairs would take around ten days to complete.
On October 8, just days before Rostelecom informed Finland of the damage sustained by its Baltika communications cable, the Balticconnector gas pipeline and another communications cable connecting Finland and Estonia both sustained damage.
Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) recently also announced that it had recovered an anchor from the seafloor that very likely damaged the Balticconector gas pipeline.
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Editor: Aili Vahtla
