By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday will call for new efforts to address growing national security concerns over submarine communications cables that handle 99% of international internet traffic.
"To end undersea sabotage, we need to call it out when it happens and say publicly who did it, if possible," Republican Senator Jim Risch plans to say at a hearing, according to prepared remarks seen by Reuters. "We also need a concerted international effort to improve the resiliency of undersea infrastructure and prevent or mitigate the impact of these attacks when they happen."
The committee is holding a hearing on the issue Thursday and said since 2022, there have been at least eight suspected undersea sabotage incidents in the Baltic Sea and Russia is suspected of likely being responsible.
"Russia has developed high-end undersea warfare capabilities, as well as low-tech options that mimic the effects of an anchor dragging on the sea floor to hide its behavior," Risch's remarks said, which also raised concerns about suspected Chinese actions.
Washington has been raising alarm for more than a year about the network of more than 400 subsea cables that handle 99% of international internet traffic and about threats from China and Russia.
"A growing body of evidence points to a pattern of coordinated malign activity linked to the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation targeting subsea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, Indo-Pacific, and other strategic regions," U.S. House lawmakers said last year in a letter first reported by Reuters.
The Russian and Chinese embassies in Washington did not immediately comment.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said earlier the agency plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the United States that include Chinese technology or equipment.
In November 2024, two fiber-optic undersea telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were cut, prompting investigations of possible sabotage. In 2023, Taiwan accused two Chinese vessels of cutting the only two cables that support internet access on the Matsu Islands.
Earlier this month, Britain said it deployed military vessels to prevent any attacks on cables by Russian submarines that spent more than a month in and around British waters earlier this year.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Nick Zieminski)
