The Danish military said on Wednesday that it was staying close to a Chinese ship currently sitting idle in Danish waters, days after two fibre-optic data telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were severed.

Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday, with a Danish navy patrol ship at anchor nearby, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data showed.

“The Danish Defence can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said in a post on social media X, adding it had no further comments.

It is quite rare for Denmark’s military to comment publicly on individual vessels travelling in Danish waters. It did not mention the cable breaches or say why it was staying with the ship.

The Chinese ship left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15 and was in the areas where the cable damages occurred, according to traffic data, which showed other ships to have been in the areas too.

One cable running between Sweden and Lithuania was cut on Sunday and another one between Finland and Germany was severed less than 24 hours later on Monday.

The breaches happened in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone and Swedish prosecutors started a preliminary investigation on Tuesday on suspicion of possible sabotage.

Swedish Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said on Tuesday that the country’s armed forces and coastguard had picked up ship movements that corresponded with the interruption of two telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea.

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