On the afternoon of 7 October 2023, Four of the total six fiberoptic cable pairs were totally destroyed and the remaining two were functional. Politician
Antti Kaikkonen was quoted saying "
There are a bit too many coincidental coincidences for it to be coincidental". On 17 October 2023, the damage was made public when the Swedish government reported the incident. In Estonia, investigation is carried out by the
Estonian Internal Security Service (KAPO), the
Prosecutor's Office and , and by the
National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi) in Finland. Russian cargo ship and Chinese cargo ship were suspected of involvement in the incident. Both ships travelled near EE-S1 at precisely the time the damage occurred.
Sevmorput's owner
Rosatom denied involvement. The seas in Northern Norway are heavily patrolled, but the
Norwegian Armed Forces declined to provide any comments to the media. According to
Rostelecom, during this incident, Russian optical cable, connecting Kaliningrad and St Petersburg, was also damaged. ==Conclusions==