HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland has no reason to suspect that the severing of two separate terrestrial fiber optic cables was a criminal act, police said on Tuesday, as authorities and owners work to establish the exact cause of the failures.

Nordic telecommunications groups GlobalConnect and Elisa said one of the two breaches on Monday was likely due to excavation work. GlobalConnect is still investigating the second incident.

“Based on current information, we have no reason to suspect a crime in this case,” Inspector Teemu Saukoniemi of the Finnish National Police told Reuters.

One of the cables had been repaired Tuesday morning.

The disruption follows recent ruptures of two undersea fiber optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, which raised suspicions of potential sabotage.

“The authorities are investigating this matter in collaboration with the company. We take the situation seriously,” Finnish Minister of Transport and Communications Lulu Ranne said in a message posted on the social network X.

The violations occurred on a connection linking Finland and Sweden, a spokesperson for the Swedish Post and Telecommunications Authority said.

“Due to the circumstances surrounding what happened, sabotage is suspected,” Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said in a statement.

(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Johan Ahlander, Elviira Luoma and Anne Kauranen, editing by Terje Solsvik and Ed Osmond)

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