A critical underwater internet cable linking Finland to Germany has been severed, sparking fears of Russian sabotage.
The incident happened in the vicinity of the Swedish island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea, early on Monday morning.
Cinia, the Finnish state-owned data service provider, said a repair ship had been sent to investigate the cause of the outage, which has hit the only cable connecting the country to central Europe.
Finland’s communications agency said most internet users would not notice Monday’s outage, with the country able to fall back on cables running through other parts of the continent.
The company said that, while there was no indication that the damage was sabotage, it was likely to have been the result of human activity.
“At the moment, there is no way to assess the cause of the cable break, but such breaks without external impact do not happen in these waters,” said Ari-Jussi Knaapila, the chief executive of Cinia.
However, he cautioned that the damage could have been caused by a trawler or a ship that had put down an emergency anchor. The company pointed out that the fibre optic cables are sheathed in a double-armoured steel casing.