Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

It's worth mentioning that cable breakages happen quite often; globally about 200 times per year [1] and the article itself mentions that just last year, two other cables and a gas pipeline were taken out by an anchor. The Gulf of Finland is evidently quite shallow. From what I understand, cable repair ships are likely to use ROVs for parts of repair jobs but only when the water is shallow so hopefully they can figure out whether the damage looks like sabotage before they sever the cable to repair it. Of course, if you're a bad actor and want plausible deniability, maybe you'd make it look like anchor damage or, deliberately drag an anchor right over the cables.

Cable repairs are certainly annoying and for the operator of the cable, expensive. However, they are usually repaired relatively quickly. I'd be more worried if many more cables were severed at the same time. If you're only going to break one or two a year, you might as well not bother.

1: https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea...

"Germany’s defense minister says damage to 2 Baltic data cables appears to be sabotage" - https://apnews.com/article/germany-finland-baltic-data-cable...

English isn't my first language, but isn't "appears to be" inconclusive? It is or it isn't, "appears to be" is still too vague for my liking.

"Appears to be", in English, generally means "on first look/glance." It runs very close to "I believe such and such."

If I asked you for an answer to a math question, then you showed me the answer with how you got there, on a very quick glance I might say: "That appears to be correct."

It could mean they've seen more evidence to make that assessment, or are basing that assessment on the same evidence we have. Regardless, "appears to be" is hedging in the absence of certainty.

In a political and intelligence sense "appears to be" is a rhetorical tool for propaganda purposes, or / and to cover you ass. He could say "We have no evidence of this being sabotage and further speculation is not useful at this point” which is what he says, from one perspective.

On the other he is framing a conspiracy theory: "Something happened that appears to be sabotage and sabotage would be done by the enemy. " and the European media has been stuffed full of conspiracy theories during the entire conflicts.

Educationally you can look at the Nord Stream pipelines sabotage.

Nearly every EU and US source writes in big letters that Russia was behind it. After a while, it became nearly impossible to keep that conspiracy theory alive.

Sweden and Denmark ended their investigation into the matter with no conclusion drawn The present narrative is that the sabotage was done by a Ukrainian team with a shoe string budget:

A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Private businessmen funded the shoestring operation, which was overseen by a top general; President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried unsuccessfully to call it off https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos...