I’m fascinated that this story has garnered essentially zero interest or coverage when it’s the exact thing people need to be paying attention to.
On October 7th (weird, right?) the Balticonnector LNG pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged. That pipeline also has a parallel line of telecom cables adjacent to it. Those were damaged as well at roughly the same time. Shortly before that occurred - a few hours - the EE-S1 comms cable between Sweden and Estonia was damaged. 4 of 6 fiber cable pairs were completely destroyed. 2 remain operational.
When the damage to the pipeline occurred - three events happened at basically the exact same time. 1) operators noticed a massive pressure drop in the line. 2) a small seismic event was observed by NORSAR and 3) the russian ship Sevmorput and the Chinese ship newnew polar bear crossed right over the area where the damage occurred. Those two ships stayed together into the waters of northern Norway which have a ton of underwater infrastructure. Norway responded by stepping up military presence and surveillance in what is already a relatively high traffic area.
The newnew polar bear was purchased by Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang and reflagged (hong Kong) in 2023. The sevmorput is one of 4 nuclear powered cargo ships ever built. It was built for Murmansk but is now owned by Rosatom - the state owned nuclear energy corporation in Russia. It’s a massive company (276,000 employees) involved in several different industries. Interesting and pertinent here are that it maintains a nuclear powered fleet of icebreakers active in the baltic and North Sea, and it has helped Iran with significant amounts of nuclear power infrastructure including building the power plant in bushehr on the Persian gulf. It is contracted to build 2 additional units outside of Bushehr but nearby on the gulf coast. Also provides about 20% of the enriched uranium needed by us nuclear power plants, and about 15% of Europe is served by utility companies that rely solely on rosatom for their enriched uranium.
On October 7th (weird, right?) the Balticonnector LNG pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged. That pipeline also has a parallel line of telecom cables adjacent to it. Those were damaged as well at roughly the same time. Shortly before that occurred - a few hours - the EE-S1 comms cable between Sweden and Estonia was damaged. 4 of 6 fiber cable pairs were completely destroyed. 2 remain operational.
When the damage to the pipeline occurred - three events happened at basically the exact same time. 1) operators noticed a massive pressure drop in the line. 2) a small seismic event was observed by NORSAR and 3) the russian ship Sevmorput and the Chinese ship newnew polar bear crossed right over the area where the damage occurred. Those two ships stayed together into the waters of northern Norway which have a ton of underwater infrastructure. Norway responded by stepping up military presence and surveillance in what is already a relatively high traffic area.
The newnew polar bear was purchased by Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang and reflagged (hong Kong) in 2023. The sevmorput is one of 4 nuclear powered cargo ships ever built. It was built for Murmansk but is now owned by Rosatom - the state owned nuclear energy corporation in Russia. It’s a massive company (276,000 employees) involved in several different industries. Interesting and pertinent here are that it maintains a nuclear powered fleet of icebreakers active in the baltic and North Sea, and it has helped Iran with significant amounts of nuclear power infrastructure including building the power plant in bushehr on the Persian gulf. It is contracted to build 2 additional units outside of Bushehr but nearby on the gulf coast. Also provides about 20% of the enriched uranium needed by us nuclear power plants, and about 15% of Europe is served by utility companies that rely solely on rosatom for their enriched uranium.