Latvian Investigation Clears Docked Ship of Undersea Cable Damage

Latvian authorities found no evidence linking a ship at Liepaja port to recent telecoms cable damage. The Baltic Sea area remains on high alert following several outages affecting power, telecoms, and pipelines since the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. Increased NATO presence aims to prevent further incidents.

Latvian investigators have determined that a ship docked at the port of Liepaja is not responsible for damage caused to an underwater telecoms cable last week, according to a police statement on Monday.

The disruption occurred on Friday near Latvia's coast, prompting authorities to board a ship and begin criminal proceedings, although they did not disclose the vessel's identity. This action comes amid heightened security in the Baltic Sea region following multiple infrastructural outages since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leading to an increased NATO presence.

So far, investigations do not point to the specified ship being linked to the optical cable damage, Latvia's national police confirmed. MarineTraffic data showed four ships crossing the affected Lithuania-Latvia cable on January 2, with three still at Liepaja port as of Monday morning.

(With inputs from agencies.)