RIGA - Information obtained by the Latvian State Police does not currently indicate that the ship in the port of Liepaja is connected with the damage of an optical cable in the Baltic Sea.
The State Police informed LETA that the police last night completed their work on the ship, which was initially suspected of possible damage to the cable in the Baltic Sea.
During the criminal proceedings, police officers inspected the vessel and the anchor, examined technical equipment and logs, and questioned several persons. The crew of the vessel cooperated with the police by voluntarily providing all the necessary information for the investigation, the police said.
At present, the information obtained in the criminal proceedings does not suggest that the vessel in question was involved in the damage to the fiber-optic cable. At the same time, the criminal investigation is continuing, including the circumstances under which the cable was damaged, the State Police said.
In the light of the information verified by the police, the vessel in question will no longer be prevented from moving.
The police did not comment on the case any further.
As reported, an optical cable Palanga (Sventoji)-Liepaja was damaged in the Baltic Sea near Liepaja last week, the State Police has opened criminal proceedings and allegedly had identified a suspect vessel.
Consumers in Latvia and Lithuania have not been affected by the damage to the communication cable.
Information about the damage to a fiber-optic cable belonging to a private company was received from Lithuania. The incident occurred in Latvian territorial waters on January 2.
According to the initial information by the Coast Guard Service of the National Armed Forces, the suspected vessel had moved over an inactive cable and then changed course towards the active, now damaged, cable.
According to publicly available information, the Palanga (Sventoji)-Liepaja cable has been in operation since 1995 and is owned by Arelion, a telecommunications operator owned by Polhem Infra, a Swedish pension fund. The company also owns the cable connecting Sventoji to the Swedish island of Gotland, which was damaged in spring 2025.
It has also been reported that the Finnish telecommunications company Elisa also detected damage to the cable on the morning of December 31 and reported it to the Finnish authorities.
A Finnish border patrol vessel and a helicopter detected the suspect vessel in the Finnish exclusive economic zone and found that the anchor of the vessel had been dropped into the sea.
The Finnish border guards ordered the vessel to stop, raise the anchor and proceed to Finnish territorial waters. The vessel is currently in the port of Kantvik.
Elisa has stated that its customers in neither Finland nor Estonia have suffered any disruption of communications due to the damaged cable.
LETA also reported that in the early hours of January 26, LVRTC's subsea fiber-optic cable in the Baltic Sea was damaged in the Ventspils-Gotland section. The cable was damaged in Swedish economic waters about 130 kilometers off the Latvian coast. The police have launched a criminal procedure on the case, and investigation continues.
The Swedish authorities arrested the Vezhen, a ship sailing under the Maltese flag and owned by Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgares, on suspicions of sabotaging the fiber-optic cable in the Baltic Sea. Navigation Maritime Bulgares has denied involvement in intentional sabotage, and the vessel was later released.
"It has been established that a combination of weather conditions and deficiencies in equipment and seamanship contributed to the cable break," Senior Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said at the time.
Repairing the subsea cable cost nearly EUR 500,000 to its owner, the Latvian State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC), LETA was told at the company.
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