Saturday, February 1

Norwegian police have taken control of a Russian-crewed ship in the Baltic Sea due to growing fears of suspected sabotage once again.

Yet another fiber-optic cable was cut this week as the latest in a string of recent incidents involving Russian and Chinese ships.

This time, a cable connecting Sweden and Latvia was cut, and Latvian authorities were quick to communicate with patrols in the area.

The Norwegian coast guard, which was in the area, quickly surrounded a suspect ship, and it was brought to the Norwegian port of Tromsø, located in northern Norway, on Thursday.

The ship was confirmed to be the Silver Dania, a cargo ship registered in Norway, and it is owned by the company Silver Sea. The crew onboard was all-Russian, adding to Norway's suspicions, and they were traveling in between the Russian cities of St. Petersburg and Murmansk. Silver Sea has cooperated with authorities, though, and they have maintained that they had nothing to do with the sabotage to the undersea cable.

However, on the other hand, Sweden arrested a completely different ship known as the Vezhen, which is owned by the Bulgarian shipping company of Navigation Maritime Bulgare and was flying a Maltese flag at the time of arrest. The ship has been brought to Karlskrona, a port town in southern Sweden, where the crew is being interrogated.

Unfortunately, incidents like this have become common in the Baltic Sea, and the long list of ships involved continues to grow.

In 2022, the crucial Nord Stream gas pipeline that carries gas from Russia to Germany was blown up by several explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm.

In November of last year, two fiber-optic cables connecting Lithuania and Sweden and Finland and Germany were cut, and the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 was considered a suspect after being in the area and was taken into custody by authorities.

On Christmas Day, an underwater power line and four communication cables traveling between Finland and Estonia were cut, and drag marks were confirmed in the area just after a ship carrying Russian oil was arrested.

However, no company or ship has admitted to sabotaging any cables, and this type of hybrid warfare is extremely tough to price. This means that while the European Union has strong suspicions that these ships belong to Russia's so-called "shadow fleet," they technically have no solid proof to confirm that Russia or China are at fault.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): The world's largest stadium is located in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The Rungrado 1st of May Stadium seats up to 150,000 people and hosts games like soccer matches and major national events.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): What stress really does, though, is deplete willpower, which diminishes your ability to control those emotions. (Roy Baumeister)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Encroach (verb, in-KROHCH) - To encroach is to gradually move or go into an area that is beyond the usual or desired limits, or to gradually take or begin to use or affect something that belongs to, or is being used by, someone else. Encroach is often followed by on or upon.

In a Sentence: Conflicts between people and bears increase as humans continue to encroach on bear territory.