Russia Just Cut Two Undersea Cables Connecting Finland and Sweden to Europe

Wes O'Donnell
7 min readNov 20, 2024

Right After Biden gave the green light to Ukraine to use American missiles against Russians in Kursk…

An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the “Raptors” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 71 embarked aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis hovers while deploying its sonar dipping buoy during an undersea warfare exercise involving the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group. Public domain.

According to TechRadar, around 380 undersea cables carry over 99.5% of all transoceanic data, running for 750,000 miles across the ocean floor.

These fiber optic wires connect the massive data centers supporting cloud behemoths such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.”

The first submarine communications cables provided near-instant telecommunications links between continents, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable, which became operational in August 1858.

By the time glass fiber optic cables were put to use in the mid-1980s, the industry (and infrastructure) of manufacturing, storing, and laying undersea cables was mature and profitable.

Manufacturers knew how to properly protect, power, and insulate undersea cables to achieve the best performance.

The first submarine cable to use fiber optics was TAT-8, which went live in 1988. It reached speeds of 280Mb per second. And today, the world is largely dependent on the blazing-fast speeds of undersea internet cables for trillions of dollars in…

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Wes O'Donnell
Wes O'Donnell

Written by Wes O'Donnell

US Army & US Air Force Veteran | Global Security Writer | Intel Forecaster | Law Student | TEDx Speaker | Pro Democracy | Pro Human | Hates Authoritarians

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