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.

More than 100 politicians from 24 different countries, including the UK, the US and the EU, have written a joint letter condemning China over the “arbitrary detention and unfair trial” of Jimmy Lai, a tycoon and pro-democracy campaigner.

The parliamentarians, led by senior British Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, are “urgently” demanding the immediate release of the 77-year-old British citizen, who has been held in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison in Hong Kong for almost four years.

The letter – which will be embarrassing for Beijing – was made public on the eve of Mr Lai’s trial resuming and on the day after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a G20 summit of economic powers in Brazil.

It also comes as Hong Kong jailed 45 pro-democracy activists.

The group of politicians, who also include representatives from Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, Ukraine and France, said Mr Lai’s treatment was “inhumane”.

“He is being tried on trumped-up charges arising from his peaceful promotion of democracy, his journalism and his human rights advocacy,” they wrote in the letter, which has been seen by Sky News.

“The world is watching as the rule of law, media freedom and human rights in Hong Kong are eroded and undermined.

“We stand together in our defence of these fundamental freedoms and in our demand that Jimmy Lai be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Sir Keir raised the case of Mr Lai during remarks released at the start of his talks with Mr Xi on Monday – the first meeting between a British prime minister and the Chinese leader in six years.

The prime minister could be heard expressing concerns about reports of Mr Lai’s deteriorating health. However, he did not appear to call for his immediate release.

Ms Kearns, the MP for Rutland and Stamford in the East Midlands, said the meeting had been an opportunity to be unequivocal that the UK expects Mr Lai to be freed.

“Jimmy Lai is being inhumanely persecuted for standing up for basic human values,” she said in a statement, released alongside the letter.

“He represents the flame of freedom millions seek around the world.

“We have a duty to fight for Jimmy Lai as a British citizen, and to take a stand against the Chinese Community Party’s erosion of rule of law in Hong Kong.

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“This letter represents the strength of international feeling and commitment of parliamentarians globally to securing Jimmy Lai’s immediate release and return to the UK with his family.”

Mr Lai was famously the proprietor of the Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily in Hong Kong, which wrote scathing reports about the local authorities and the communist government in mainland China after Britain handed back the territory to Beijing in 1997.

The tabloid was a strong supporter of pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets of Hong Kong to demonstrate against the government in 2019.

But the media mogul was arrested the following year – one of the first victims of a draconian new security law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party.

His newspaper was closed after his bank accounts were frozen.

Mr Lai has since been convicted of illegal assembly and fraud. He is now on trial for sedition over articles published in Apple Daily.

Forty-five pro-democracy activists have been jailed in Hong Kong’s largest ever national security trial.

The activists sentenced with jail terms ranging from four years to ten years were accused of conspiracy to commit subversion after holding an unofficial primary election in Hong Kong in 2020.

They were arrested in 2021.

Hong Kong authorities say the defendants were trying to overthrow the territory’s government.

Democracy activist Benny Tai received the longest sentence of ten years. He became the face of the movement when thousands of protesters took to the city’s streets during the “Umbrella Movement” demonstrations.

However, Hong Kong officials accused him of being behind the plan to organise elections to select candidates.

Tai had pleaded guilty, his lawyers argued he believed his election plan was allowed under the city’s Basic Law.

Another prominent activist Joshua Wong received a sentence of more than four years.

Wong became one of the leading figures in the protests. His activism started as a 15 year old when he spearheaded a huge rally against a government plan to change the school curriculum.

Then in 2019 Hong Kong erupted in protests after the city’s government proposed a bill that would allow extradition to mainland China. It peaked in June 2019 when Amnesty International reported that up to two million people marched on the streets, paralysing parts of Hong Kong’s business district.

The extradition bill was later dropped but it had ignited a movement demanding political change and freedom to elect their own leaders in Hong Kong.

China’s central government called the protests “riots” that could not continue.

Hong Kong introduced a national security law in the aftermath of the protests.

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The US has called the trial “politically motivated”.

Dozens of family and friends of the accused were waiting for the verdict outside the West Kowloon Magistrates Court.

British citizen and media mogul Jimmy Lai is due to testify on Wednesday.

Meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in Brazil, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told China’s President Xi Jinping he’s concerned about the health of Lai.

He faces charges of fraud and the 2019 protests. He has also been charged with sedition and collusion with foreign forces.