The Swedish prosecutor's office has closed the case of the Bulgarian ship that severed the underwater fibre-optic cable of the Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC) in the Baltic Sea in January, after concluding that it was an accident, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said on 13 October.

However, the prosecutor's office found that the vessel had several technical defects.

As reported earlier, in the early hours of January 26, 2025, LVRTC's submarine 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 Swedish authorities seized the vessel suspected of sabotaging the cable - the Vezhen. The Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgares, which owns the Maltese-flagged dry cargo vessel Vezhen, denied deliberately damaging the undersea fiber-optic cable linking Latvia and Sweden.

Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said that the cable damage was caused by a combination of unfavourable circumstances - weather, equipment deficiencies and lack of shipping expertise. "The investigation shows that it was an accident," he added.

The prosecutor's office said the investigation had analysed the Vezhen's black box, interviewed several people and studied a video showing the cable damage.

On the night the cable was damaged, the weather conditions in the Baltic Sea were very bad.

A ship's anchor is normally secured by three independent safety devices, but two of them had been inoperative for some time. The only functioning device holding the anchor in place broke after it was hit by a large wave at 4.11 a.m. on 25 January. As a result, the anchor and chain were completely loosened, causing the vessel to slow down and gradually turn, the investigation found.

"As the ship's autopilot was engaged at the time, the autopilot compensated. No alarm signal informed the people on the bridge of what had happened," the prosecutor's office said.

The next day, the ship ran over a cable off the coast of Gotland and its anchor broke it. It is therefore possible to conclude that the cable was not damaged intentionally, Ljungqvist explained.

In spring 2025, the findings of the Swedish investigation were submitted to the Latvian authorities, who are carrying out their own investigation.

Sweden closes case on Latvian undersea cable damage