Russia has been accused by European governments of escalating hybrid attacks on Ukraine’s Western allies after two fibre-optic telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were severed.

“Russia is systematically attacking European security architecture,” the foreign ministers of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland said in a joint statement.

“Moscow’s escalating hybrid activities against NATO and EU countries are also unprecedented in their variety and scale, creating significant security risks.”

The statement was not made in direct response to the cutting of the cables, Reuters reported, citing two European security sources.

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Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said: “No one believes that these cables were cut accidentally.”

He added: “We also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it is sabotage.”

Investigations have been launched into the destruction of the cables earlier this week.

One linked Finland and Germany while the other connected Sweden and Lithuania.

Russia has repeatedly denied it has sabotaged European infrastructure and has accused the West of making such claims to damage Russian interests.

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Investigations launched into possible sabotage

One cable was damaged on Sunday morning and the other went out of service on Monday.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority has launched a preliminary criminal investigation into the damaged cables on suspicion of possible sabotage.

The country’s civil defence minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said its armed forces and coastguard had picked up ship movements corresponding with the damage to the cables.

“We of course take this very seriously against the background of the serious security situation,” he said.

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation said it had also launched an investigation, but Sweden would lead the probe.

NATO’s Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure was working closely with allies in the investigation, an official said.

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Baltic Sea infrastructure damaged

It is not the first time such infrastructure has been damaged in the Baltic Sea.

In September 2022, three Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany were destroyed seven months after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

No one took responsibility for the blasts and while some Western officials initially blamed Moscow, which the Kremlin denied, US and German media reported pro-Ukrainian actors may have been responsible.

The companies owning the two cables damaged earlier this week have said it was not yet clear what caused the outages.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A combination of severe hurricane damage to Tropicana Field and political delays on financing means it is highly unlikely the Tampa Bay Rays‘ planned new stadium will be ready for the 2028 season, if at all, the team said Tuesday.

Rays top executives said in a letter to the Pinellas County Commission that the team has already spent $50 million for early work on the new $1.3 billion ballpark and cannot proceed further because of delays in approval of bonds for the public share of the costs.

“The Rays organization is saddened and stunned by this unfortunate turn of events” said the letter, signed by co-presidents Brian Auld and Matt Silverman, who noted that the overall project was previously approved by the County Commission and the City of St. Petersburg.

“As we have made clear at every step of this process, a 2029 ballpark delivery would result in significantly higher costs that we are not able to absorb alone,” the letter added.

The tumultuous series of events came after Hurricane Milton ripped the roof off Tropicana Field on Oct. 9, forcing the Rays to play the 2025 season at the spring training home of the New York Yankees, 11,000-seat Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. Then, the Pinellas County Commission postponed a planned Oct. 29 vote on the bond issue that the Rays said has thrown the new 30,000-seat ballpark timeline off.

The commission was meeting again Tuesday on the bond issue, but its chair suggested a vote could be delayed again.

“We know we’re going to be in Steinbrenner in 2025 and we don’t know much beyond that,” Auld said in an interview.

Asked if Major League Baseball can survive long-term in the Tampa Bay area, Rays Principal Owner Stuart Sternberg said the outlook is “less rosy than it was three weeks ago. We’re going to do all that we can, as we’ve tried for 20 years, to keep the Rays here for generations to come.”

The team’s contract with the city of St. Petersburg requires that the Rays play three more seasons at Tropicana Field assuming it is repaired. The cost of fixing the ballpark in time for the 2026 season is pegged at more than $55 million for a building scheduled to be torn down when the new facility is ready.

Under the original plan, Pinellas County would spend about $312.5 million for the new ballpark and the city of St. Petersburg around $417 million including infrastructure improvements. The Rays and their partner, the Hines development company, would cover the remaining costs including any overruns.

It isn’t just baseball that is affected. The new Rays ballpark is part of a larger urban renovation project known as the Historic Gas Plant District, which refers to a predominantly Black neighborhood that was forced out by construction of Tropicana Field and an interstate highway spur.

The broader $6.5 billion project would transform an 86-acre (34-hectare) tract in the city’s downtown, with plans in the coming years for a Black history museum, affordable housing, a hotel, green space, entertainment venues, and office and retail space. There’s the promise of thousands of jobs as well.