OSLO (Reuters) – A Norwegian cargo ship with an all-Russian crew suspected of damaging a Baltic Sea telecoms cable has been released by authorities in Norway after no link to the incident was found, the police said late on Friday.
The Silver Dania was seized at the request of Latvian authorities and with the help of Norway’s coast guard, police in the northern Norwegian city of Tromsoe said previously.
“The investigation will continue, but we see no reason for the ship to remain in Tromsoe any longer. No findings have been made linking the ship to the act (of damaging the subsea cable),” the police said in a statement.
The Silver Dania’s owner, the Silver Sea shipping group, denied that the vessel was involved in the incident, Norwegian broadcaster TV2 reported.
Sweden and Latvia are investigating the suspected sabotage on Sunday of the cable linking the two countries.
Swedish police seized and boarded the Maltese-flagged cargo ship Vezhen on suspicion it caused the damage.
The head of the Vezhen’s operator, a Bulgarian company, said on Monday it might have struck the cable with its anchor but denied any malicious intent.
Mats Ljungqvist, the prosecutor handling the investigation in Sweden, said on Friday that they had looked at the Norwegian ship, but dismissed its involvement.
The Baltic Sea region is on high alert after a string of power cable, telecom link, and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The NATO military alliance recently boosted its presence with frigates, aircraft, and naval drones.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Jason Neely)
