(ANSA) - STOCCOLMA, DEC 31 - An underwater data communication cable between Finland and Estonia has been damaged. Finnish border guards have identified a ship they suspect may have caused the damage to the cable, Finnish public service broadcaster Yle reported.Finland's President Alexander Stubb thanked the timely work of the Finnish authorities and stressed that the government is following developments in the matter. "Finland is prepared to face several security challenges and is reacting appropriately to the situation," President Stubb added on X. Finnish police have seized a vessel suspected of damaging an undersea telecommunications cable connecting Helsinki to Tallinn, the Estonian capital, in the Gulf of Finland. Police have not released details on where the vessel came from, but Finnish public broadcaster Yle, citing the maritime website MarineTraffic, reported that it was the Fitburg, a 132-meter-long cargo ship flying the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which left St. Petersburg, Russia, bound for Haifa, Israel. The ship is suspected of being "responsible for the damage caused to the cable," which belongs to Finnish telecommunications group Elisa and is located within Estonia's exclusive economic zone, police said in a statement. Elisa said in a press release that the damage to the cable "did not in any way affect the operation" of its services. The Gulf of Finland, part of the Baltic Sea, borders Estonia, Finland and Russia. In recent years, energy and communications infrastructure, including submarine cables and pipelines, have been damaged in the Baltic Sea. After Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many experts and politicians considered the alleged cable sabotage as part of Russia's "hybrid war" against Western countries. Swedish authorities have announced that another undersea cable located in the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Estonia has been damaged. "This is a cable break in two places, in the Estonian economic zone," said Anders Wallinder, head of the department for preparedness and security at the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency. The cable break occurred on the night of Dec. 29-30 and does not affect users but increases the vulnerability of the system, added Wallinder, who was interviewed by the Swedish news agency Tt. The announcement follows what Finnish authorities previously announced today with respect to the rupture of an undersea cable between Helsinki and Tallinn. (ANSA).