Finland suspects Russia of being responsible for the damage to several undersea cables in the Baltic Sea yesterday. Finnish authorities have labeled the incident as “serious sabotage.” The anchor of the Russian ship Eagle S is believed to have damaged the Estlink 2 power cable, causing an outage.
Finnish coastguard boarded the Eagle S today and escorted it to Finnish waters, seizing its cargo. The ship, its company, and crew are under investigation by Finnish police.
The oil tanker, sailing from Russia under the Cook Islands flag, passed over the cable at 10:26 a.m., coinciding with the first outage report, according to Reuters citing Marinetraffic data. A Hong Kong container ship was previously suspected but has been ruled out.
Finland believes the Eagle S is part of a Russian shadow fleet of old oil tankers evading sanctions. The country states that repairing the Estlink 2 cable will take months, potentially affecting power supply this winter.
Estonia also suspects foul play, with Estonian Foreign Minister Tsahkna highlighting the increasing frequency of undersea infrastructure damage in the Baltic Sea as “attacks on our crucial infrastructures.” Last month, two data cables in the Baltic were damaged, one between Finland and Germany and the other between Sweden and Lithuania. The investigation team attributes the damage to a Chinese cargo ship.
Source: NOS