My personal opinion so far is that this whole thing is teetering between media frenzy and actual issue.

Edit: Have to correct myself. Googling now it seems all traces of this statement have been scrubbed, and instead I find that the International Cable Protection Committe (ICPC) claim about 200 cable issues a year WORLD WIDE.

So maybe the Finnish security police had misspoken and have now retracted this statement from all media.

Either way, I have worked with internet since 2004 and I remember as early as 2004 dealing with companies in Sweden who had boats and other equipment just to install and maintain cables across the baltic and atlantic. It's something that requires non-stop maintenance, regardless of the security situation in the world.

One also has to ask if it's productive to cut these cables when 1) it disrupts nothing on a grand scale, and 2) if it were to disrupt anything it also means they cannot perform other attacks.