German minister: “No one believes that the cables were accidentally cut”

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius believes that the damage to the submarine cables in the Baltic Sea is the result of sabotage.

“No one believes that these cables were accidentally cut.”

“I also don’t want to believe the versions that these are anchors that accidentally caused damage on top of these cables,” Pistorius said on Tuesday in Brussels before the start of the EU defense ministers’ meeting.

Pistorius emphasized that the EU must be able to respond more effectively to hybrid attacks and better defend its infrastructure.

Defense secretary Antti Häkkänen (co.c.) did not want to, like his German colleague, anticipate whether the cable breach is a case of sabotage.

Häkkänen emphasized that the matter must first be investigated: “who has moved in the area and what has happened”. Only after that is the time for conclusions.

“I’m not going to predict, but we are investigating these with the seriousness that there is an external actor involved. This is not only being investigated as a natural disaster,” Häkkänen said.

According to the Minister of Defense, the recent pipe and cable malfunctions do not endanger society’s functions and their “effects are very minimal”.

A call to Putin

The German Minister of Defense commented in Brussels, as did the Chancellor Olaf Scholzin the president of Russia has a phone call from the Russian president to Vladimir Putin.

According to Pistorius, the phone call was useful in that it was concrete evidence that Vladimir Putin doesn’t want peace. According to Pistorius, this is indicated by the fact that within 24 hours of Scholz’s phone call, Russia carried out a large-scale attack on civilian targets in Ukraine.

“Now is the right time to talk about peace,” Pistorius said.

Ukraine support

In addition to current affairs, the EU’s defense ministers will discuss military support for Ukraine on Tuesday in Brussels.

According to Defense Minister Häkkänen, the most important task of the meeting is to agree on what the EU will do together to support Ukraine in all different situations, and what additional measures can still be taken to help Ukraine.

The EU has recently had difficulties with several projects that are intended to support Ukraine. Especially because Hungary has opposed their progress.

EU countries have also had different practices regarding what kind of restrictions have been placed on weapons given to Ukraine. For example, Finland has not demanded any kind of usage restrictions, unlike Germany.

Defense Minister Pistorius said on Tuesday that Germany is not going to give its Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

He emphasized that Germany sent 4,000 AI drones to Ukraine last week, which will enable Ukraine to defend itself and attack Russian targets more effectively.

Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte said when he arrived at the meeting that NATO’s general line is that there should be no restrictions on the use of weapons supplied to Ukraine, but each member country can decide for itself.

According to Rutte, Russia will not stop its aggression, and therefore Europe must ensure that Ukraine remains – especially now that China, Iran, North Korea are helping Russia.

Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen’s comments updated on the story at 12:50 p.m.