This is a fair point. Turns out dragging anchors are a lot more common than I expected. I guess what matters is whether these cable breaks in the Baltic are statistically significant.

I have to think that some areas are more impacted than others. Say, shallow china sea area in asia with lot of small fisherman using drag nets and anchors and ignoring cable locations..

It'd be good to know what the frequency is in the baltic area and if this is abnormal. Seems the locals think it is.

Yeah I was considering all issues rather than just anchor. Another source [1] gives 100-200 incidents per year with 16% as anchorage, so 25 a year (from anchors alone) is probably a safe estimate.

I think most of us thought these incidents were exceptionally rare, so a recurring pattern of incidents itself would be suggestive of nefarious behavior. 'Oddly' enough the frequency datum was omitted from seemingly every single article on this topic.

[1] - https://www.iscpc.org/publications/submarine-cable-protectio...