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Local Sweden
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Swedish police open 'sabotage' probe over Gotland water supply damage
Several electricity and communications infrastructures have been damaged in the Baltic Sea in recent months, after Finland and Sweden, which border the Baltic, joined Nato. Many experts and political leaders have attributed the incidents to a "hybrid war" carried out by Russia against Western countries. Authorities in Gotland, off Sweden's southeastern coast, "received an alarm regarding a water pump" on Sunday at around 5.30pm, police told AFP in an email. Police did not disclose the exact location of the incident. "A technician was dispatched to the scene and discovered that someone had opened an electrical cabinet, disconnected a cable and thereby cut power to the pump," police said. The technician reconnected the cable and reset the alarm at 9.30pm. "The pump is operational again," police said. Gotland police have cordoned off the area around the electrical cabinet in order to carry out a crime scene investigation. No suspect has been arrested yet, they said. If the action had gone undetected, much of Gotland's water supply could have been interrupted. Some 61,000 people live on the 3,140-square-kilometre (1,212-square-mile) island. The pump "supplies large parts of Gotland," Susanne Bjergegaard-Pettersson, the head of the island's water supply and sewage operations, told the Aftonbladet newspaper. Sweden's Säpo security police on Monday confirmed that the incident had taken place. "It is correct that there has been a report of an incident taking place yesterday," Johan Wikström, a spokesperson for Säpo, told the Aftonbladet.
BBC News
03-03-2025
- BBC News
Swedish police investigate suspected water pump sabotage
Swedish police are investigating a suspected sabotage incident on a water pump on the island of Gotland in the Baltic told the BBC that the local government's water unit received an alarm for a water pump on Sunday at 17:30 local time (16:30 GMT). "Technicians found that someone has opened an electrical cabinet, pulled out a cable and thereby cut off the power to the pump," police said. The technician put the cable back and reset the alarm at 21:30 local time, and the pump is now have cordoned off the area and started an investigation "on sabotage", but have not yet detained anyone. Water supply was not impacted, Patrik Johansson, unit manager at Region Gotland's water and sewage department, told Aftonbladet newspaper and SVT, Sweden's national broadcaster. Susanne Bjergegaard-Pettersson, Gotland's head of water and sewage, told Aftonbladet, which first reported the incident, that the water pumps draw from a lake that supplies large parts of the BBC has contacted Bjergegaard-Pettersson for more is a large island in the Baltic Sea that sits to the east of mainland Sweden and west of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Euronews
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Swedish police investigate suspected sabotage on Baltic Sea island
Attempted sabotage on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland might have targeted its water supply over the weekend, according to Swedish police. A spokesperson for the security services confirmed an incident was reported on Sunday, the domestic press reported. The head of the island's water and sewage system alleged that the island's water supply system was tampered with. 'They have broken open a bronze cap that supplies the raw water pumps with power and sabotaged it so that the pumps stopped,' Susanne Bjergegaard-Pettersson told Aftonbladet newspaper. Gotland is Sweden's largest island located in the Baltic Sea. Last week, an internet cable was severed off the island — the latest in a string of incidents involving cables in the region that have raised concerns of possible Russian sabotage and spying. Late last month, authorities discovered damage to an undersea fibre-optic cable running between the Latvian city of Ventspils and Gotland. A vessel belonging to a Bulgarian shipping company was seized but then released after the prosecutor ruled out sabotage. Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has sounded the alarm over such incidents, posting on X last week that the government takes all reports of damage to infrastructure in the Baltic Sea seriously. "They must be seen in the light of the serious security situation that exists," Kristersson said. The country announced in January that it would be bolstering its military presence in the Baltic Sea by deploying three warships and a radar reconnaissance aircraft.
