Two undersea cables carrying communications across the Baltic Sea have been severed, raising suspicions of sabotage, the countries and companies involved said.

The 1,200 km cable connecting Helsinki (Finland) with the port of Rostock (Germany) stopped operating at 2:00 a.m. on November 18 (GMT, 9:00 a.m. in Vietnam), according to Reuters citing information from the Finnish government-controlled Cyber ​​Security and Telecommunications Company Cinia.

In addition, the 218-km internet cable connecting Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland was also cut off at around 8:00 a.m. on November 17 (GMT), according to Telia Lietuva Company in Lithuania.

Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were "very concerned about the rupture of the submarine cable" and were investigating "an incident which immediately raises suspicions of deliberate damage".

Europe's security is being threatened by Russia's war with Ukraine and "hybrid warfare by malicious actors", the joint statement said, without naming the actors.

The two incidents are reminiscent of other incidents on the same waterway that authorities have investigated as possible sabotage, including damage to gas pipelines and underground cables last year and an explosion on the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022.

Swedish Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin stressed the importance of the shutdown of two Baltic submarine cables.

Located in northern Europe, the Baltic Sea is a busy commercial shipping route, surrounded by nine countries including Poland, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Finland and Sweden.

The damage to the cable between Finland and Germany is located near the southern tip of the Swedish island of Oland and could take five to 15 days to repair, according to Cinia CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila.