The saga continues, with the justification being that cables were damaged. Meanwhile, two different ships have been seized for a single damage to a (only a few centimeters thick) glass fiber cable: a Norwegian ship, the Silver Dania (IMO 8808604), in Norway and the Vezhen (IMO 9937270) in Sweden. The former is a palletized freight ship and the latter a dry bulk freighter, neither of which are tankers.
It is worth noting that, at least in the latest case, the Silver Dania, no violation of the Law of the Sea has occurred, as Norwegian authorities can control a ship under the Norwegian flag at any time – it is, in a sense, a floating part of the state. On the other hand, the Vezhen, which has been anchored in Karlskrona, Sweden, for three days, sails under the Maltese flag and the Swedish authorities have no jurisdiction, unless one of the few exceptions in international law applies, such as the suspicion of slave trading or piracy.
The entire cable story is, of course, no less exaggerated today than it was on the first day. In contrast to a massive structure like the Nord Stream pipelines – with concrete-wrapped steel pipes – these cables are not very durable. This suggests that the costs of repairing these cables from time to time may be lower than the costs of laying these cables in pipes or deeper in the sea floor.
However, the whole story has been made to work. The public has no comparative values. The repair in the Baltic Sea is relatively easy, as the maximum depth is 459 meters and the average is only 52 meters. In 2022, a cable that connected the Pacific island of Tonga to the internet was cut by a volcanic eruption; this cable lay in depths of up to 3,500 meters. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on this, stating, “When an undersea cable is damaged, most people are not affected. The most important glass fiber routes, such as from Europe to the USA, are duplicated. . If one of them is damaged, the data transmission of the duplicate will automatically take over.” There are maps of such undersea cables that show that the really central routes do not run through the Baltic Sea, but rather through the Mediterranean, for example.
The Vezhen is a new ship, built in 2022, while the Silver Dania, built in 1989 in Papenburg, is already an old ship. It not only sails under the Norwegian flag but also has Norwegian owners and – according to conflicting reports – either a Norwegian or a Bulgarian shipping company and either a Russian crew or seamen from Bulgaria and Myanmar.
However, even the presence of Russian seamen would have simple reasons. Countries that maintain a large navy provide seamen who have already been trained at the state’s expense, which is why, in particular, Russia supplies a large number of officers. However, it seems that at the moment, any pretext is good enough to keep the “cable sabotage” story going. Ships have already been seized, with the only thing in common being that the oil they carried was Russian, or the port from which they set sail last was Russian.
The Eventin is still anchored in Sassnitz. The customs office in Stralsund has probably not yet fully absorbed the legal regulations, as it has not yet been established that goods on a ship flying the Panamanian flag are not in the EU and therefore do not violate EU law. The Eagle S is still anchored in Finland. The Finnish authorities had stated that the ship was not seaworthy. The Yi Peng 3, the Chinese freighter, that started the cable story, is at least now on its way to Vietnam.
It is a bit irritating to see the story being rehashed – after all, the Washington Post, with its close ties to US intelligence, reported less than two weeks ago that the cable damage was due to accidents at sea and not to “Russian sabotage” which can be read as a message to the West: “Let it be.” And even before the inauguration of Donald Trump.
However, a new article has appeared in another publication, in one of the three leading US foreign policy magazines, Foreign Policy, which pushes in the opposite direction, urging Trump to impose secondary sanctions for the “shadow fleet” also on the West route of oil transport, for example, sanctioning India for accepting Russian oil that originated in an East Sea port.
The author of this text admits that blocking the delivery of Russian oil would “drive prices to the sky and lead to inflation and slower economic growth.” This seems like a counter-move in the US internal debate, while the EU and NATO bubble around the Baltic Sea is still in a state of shock, unsure of which direction the big brother under Trump will take, but now seems to believe it can safely resume the dangerous game. The fact that the whole strategy is still backed from the US (by whom, possibly even without the knowledge of the Trump administration) is shown by the recent report of a strengthened US Navy presence in Rostock, without a US Navy ship being anchored in Rostock.
There are many more factors at play than what Brussels or Rostock has in its sight. The revelation of DeepSeek, the Chinese AI, was like a shot across the bow, a clear indication that China can use more than just military means to defend itself and deliver unexpected blows. So far, the most effective non-military deterrent power of China has been the ability to sell off all US state bonds at once. Since a few days, it is clear that there may be other possibilities – technological, that have been just as little revealed as diverse products of Russian rocket developers. It is clear, however, that two or three cases like DeepSeek at once would bring the international financial system to a standstill at least as effectively as US state bonds.
But who says that the DeepSeek episode was only about the threats of tariffs and not also about attempts to hinder the delivery of Russian oil to China? China would, of course, see this as an attack on its development possibilities and would not react kindly. And India? The US has been courting India for years, not just under the Biden administration; but even in this case, blocking the delivery of Russian oil would not be a friendly move and would ultimately worsen the strategic prospects of the US, as Indian refineries are making good business by converting Russian oil into Indian gasoline. The Ukraine, which has lost the war in any case and the vanity of the Europeans would be worth losing influence in Asia for?
The fuse in the Baltic Sea is not very long. After all, further ships will likely be seized, leaving only two steps as a counter-measure – sailing in convoys under military escort, which, given the fact that the two sides would immediately clash, is rather unlikely; or, as it has been done before in Somalia or the Strait of Malacca, hiring armed personnel on ships to protect them from seizure. This would make it riskier for the authorities of NATO countries to seize or detain ships, but it would not yet lead to direct military clashes.
Ultimately, the decision will be made in Washington, whether to bring the Balts and their friends (who already dream of making the Baltic a toll-paying NATO inner sea) to reason or whether to take this theater so far that two states clash. So far, the most suitable targets for illegal seizures have been avoided, as if the propaganda apparatus still needs to warm up. Now, the upcoming government change in Germany would be a good opportunity to correct this course. After all, Germany has something in the fire, as many large container ships, which mainly serve routes from and to China and which could be disrupted in the event of an escalating conflict, also sail under the flags of other countries and the owners are not always immediately recognizable, but the Huthi have shown that it is not too difficult to get this information.