A critical underwater internet cable linking Finland to Germany has been severed, sparking fears of Russian sabotage.

The incident occurred early on Monday morning in the vicinity of the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

Cinia, the Finnish state-owned data service provider, said that a repair ship had been sent to investigate the cause of the outage, which has hit the only cable connecting the Nordic country to central Europe.

Finland’s communications agency said that most internet users would not notice Monday’s outage, with the country able to fall back on cables running through other parts of the continent.

The company said that while there was no indication that the damage was sabotage, it was likely to have been the result of human activity.