Captain Claims Bulker's Anchor System Was Sabotaged by Russians
The head of Bulgarian shipping company Navibulgar maintains that the bulker Vezhen accidentally "leaked" anchor chain out past the chain stopper in rough weather, and that any damage that the vessel may have inflicted to a subsea cable between Gotland and Latvia was not an act of sabotage. Another mariner, "long distance" Captain Donyo Dachev, had a different perspective: he told Bulgarian outlet Fakti that there is as of yet no proof that the Vezhen was involved at all, and that if it was, its anchor system could have been sabotaged by Russians during the previous port call.
"In the Russian port [Ust-Luga], there were all possibilities for malicious actions to be committed. When loading, there is no one from the crew who is constantly standing on the deck, but there is always a person from the Russian side who manages the loading," Capt. Dachev told Fakti. "The Bulgarian ship is a victim of sabotage, which is supposed to cover up real Russian sabotage."
He emphasized that the Vezhen's crewmembers were well trained and would never jeopardize their careers "for such ridiculous things as sabotaging a cable."
Multiple maritime experts have suggested that the odds of an accidental, unnoticed anchor release are relatively low. "You wonder why the speed is decreasing and why the engines are working so hard and why you have difficulty steering. There are many indicators. It's impossible to miss," said Peter Sigray, a researcher at the Faculty of Marine Systems at KTH, speaking to SVT. "Either it is very poor seamanship and poor training, or they did it on purpose. But I am not making any assessment as to which it is, experts must come in and make the assessment."
However, Bulgaria's far-right, ultranationalist Vazrazhdane (Revival) Party has called on the Bulgarian government to immediately demand an apology from Sweden for detaining the Vezhen.
"We demand that the Bulgarian state, represented by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, immediately condemn the pirate actions of the Swedish government and demand an apology," said Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov on Wednesday. "If what they claim has actually happened, the guilty parties will face the deserved punishment. But if it turns out that everything was completely unintentional, will the government of the Kingdom of Sweden offer an apology? Because something that is not requested is not given."
Bulgaria's ambassador to Sweden is currently awaiting permission to go aboard the ship and meet with the crew. None have been formally charged or detained, and as of Tuesday, Navibulgar said that they had not been questioned by Swedish police.
The cable damage incident was the fourth in a year, defying the low odds of accidental, unnoticed anchor dragging mid-voyage. Baltic nations are on edge about the possibility of Russian sabotage attacks on subsea infrastructure, and NATO has deployed a substantial patrol presence to help monitor and protect subsea cables from attack. This comes at considerable expense, and possible hardening measures - like encasing or burying cables - would cost even more.
On Wednesday, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told Reuters that the region's stakeholders may have to begin charging an access fee for Baltic shipping. He said that coastal states would have to agree on a mechanism, but did not address the legal question of how to charge foreign merchant shipping for access to treaty-protected straits and international waters - nor the precedent this could set for authoritarian states to justify their own claims of control over high seas shipping.
"When you go to an airport, you pay landing and airport fees, which are included in ticket prices," Pevkur told Reuters. "In the future, we might see a similar charge for vessels passing through the Danish straits — essentially an insurance fee against cable damage."