Denmark’s military said today it remains close to a Chinese ship lying idle in Danish waters, days after two fiber optic telecommunications data cables were cut in the Baltic Sea.

The Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was today moored in the Kattegat Strait between Denmark and Sweden, while a Danish navy patrol vessel was moored nearby, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data showed.

“The Danish Armed Forces can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3“, the army said in a post on the social networking platform X, adding that it had no further comment to make.

It is quite rare for the Danish military to publicly comment on individual ships traveling in Danish waters. He did not say what damage was done to the cables or why he remained near the ship.

Swedish police later told the TT news agency that they were also interested in the Yi Peng 3, adding that there may be other vessels of interest in Sweden’s investigation.

The Chinese ship sailed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga on November 15 and was in the areas where the cables were damaged, according to traffic data, which showed other ships were also in those areas.

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

The cut took place in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone and Swedish prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation on Tuesday on suspicion of sabotage.

THE Swedish Minister of Civil Protection Carl-Oskar Bolin told Reuters on Tuesday that the country’s armed forces and coastguard had detected ship movements that corresponded to the outage of two telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea.

A Chinese government spokesman said today that it always requires its ships to comply with relevant laws and regulations.

“We also attach great importance to the protection of seabed infrastructure and, together with the international community, actively promote the construction and protection of submarine cables and other international infrastructure,” the spokesman said.

European governments on Tuesday accused Russia of escalating hybrid attacks against Ukraine’s western allies, but stopped short of directly blaming Russia for the destruction of the cables.

Asked about the issue on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular briefing of reporters: “It is completely absurd to keep blaming Russia for everything for no reason.”