NATO warships surrounded the Chinese ship. The crew is suspected of having cut the cables in the Baltic Sea

The investigators suspect that the crew of the 225-meter-long and 32-meter-wide ship for transporting bulk materials broke the cables on purpose. They are trying to find out whether the captain was recruited by the Russian secret service, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“It is highly unlikely that the captain would not notice that his ship has dropped anchor and is dragging it behind, cutting the cable and losing speed,” said a senior European official.

An inspection of the anchor and the hull of the Yi Ping 3 ship revealed damage consistent with the anchor breaking a submarine cable, people familiar with the investigation told the American newspaper.

Sweden, which, like Germany and Lithuania, has already launched a criminal investigation, asked the ship to return to Swedish territorial waters, where the cables were cut, and help the investigation. “We contacted the ship and announced that we want it to move to Swedish waters,” said Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, according to The Guardian.

So far, no charges have been brought against specific actors, as it is a sensitive issue of an attack on a ship in international waters. International maritime law does not allow NATO ships to force a vessel to enter any of the ports. The effort is to achieve at least the possibility of questioning the Chinese captain and the crew of the ship, which also includes a Russian sailor, on board the vessel.

Kristersson therefore acts very diplomatically: “Now we are very careful not to accuse anyone now. We don’t know if it was sabotage. We are carefully investigating the matter.”

“Due to the calm weather and manageable wave heights, the probability of accidentally dropping the anchor is minimal,” the analytical company Kpler, which provides real-time data on international shipping, told the American newspaper.

Western intelligence services do not believe that the Chinese government was involved in the incident in any way. This shows the approach of the Chinese authorities and it follows from the statement of the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Mano Ning: “China consistently cooperates with all countries to maintain the security of international submarine cables and other infrastructures,” the spokeswoman told reporters.

However, there is suspicion in the West that the Russian secret services were behind the incident. Even Kristersson said: “We are aware of the high risk of various activities in the Baltic Sea.”

“This is an absurd baseless accusation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Wall Street Journal. He added that the same Western representatives who are now pointing the finger at Russia were silent when the Nord Stream gas pipeline was detonated at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, which he blamed on Ukraine.

The ship loaded with fertilizer left the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on November 15. Investigators have already established that she dropped anchor in Swedish waters on November 17. Even with the anchor lowered, it continued sailing and shortly after it was lowered, the anchor cut the BCS East West cable between Lithuania and Sweden. The telecommunications company discovered damage to the cable on November 17 around ten in the morning.

The ship continued to sail with the AIS automatic response identification device turned off, so that it was invisible to the monitoring equipment. However, it is on satellite images that showed that the ship continued to sail at a significantly reduced speed.

The second C-Lion 1 cable connecting Germany and Finland, whose route she followed almost exactly, she cut 111 miles further on November 18 at three in the morning. After that, the ship began to zigzag and continued sailing through the Baltic Sea with the anchor, which the crew had already pulled out.

The Chinese ship was then chased by a warship of the Danish Navy and forced the cargo ship to stop and drop anchor in the Kattegat Strait connecting the Baltic Sea with the North Sea.

Consent to anchor was provided by the Chinese shipping company Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, which operates the Yi Peng 3. It is cooperating with the investigation, but the Chinese captain and the crew, which includes a Russian sailor, have not yet been interviewed. But the Danish pilot was allowed on board.

The case is very sensitive also because Western countries must carefully observe all provisions of maritime law. They use them themselves against China in the South China Sea, to which Beijing makes unjustified claims. They pass through places near artificial islands that China unilaterally designates as its sovereign waters.