“After an inital investigation, the police dropped the case due to lack of evidence, and inadequate legislation.”
The police photos show crushing damage consistent with a multi-ton trawl door dragged across a cable that hard seabed kept from being buried. A Russian trawler crossed the Svalbard cable more than 140 times, more than a dozen of them before it failed in January 2022. Norway kept the photos private for two years and closed the case. Whoever cut a 1300km link to an Arctic territory faced no consequences.