Finland's coast guard authorities have seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea, amid suspicions it caused an outage of an undersea power cable. (Reuters: Rajavartiosto/Finnish Border Guard/Lehtikuva)
In short:
Finland's coast guard has seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion it caused an outage of an undersea power cable connecting the Nordic nation to Estonia.
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation says the ship is suspected of towing an anchor that caused damage to the subsea electricity source.
What's next?
A formal investigation is underway into the incident, and Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said his country would continue to have sufficient access to electricity.
Authorities from Finland have seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion it caused the outage of an undersea power cable connecting the Nordic nation to Estonia and damaged or broke four internet lines.
The ship, which is registered in the Cook Islands and named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded on Thursday by a Finnish coast guard crew that took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, an official said at a press conference.
"From our side we are investigating grave sabotage," Robin Lardot, the director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, said.
"According to our understanding, an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage."
Finland's National Bureau of Investigation has confirmed it is examining the alleged incident as a case of 'grave sabotage'. (Reuters: Lehtikuva/Jussi Nukari)
The Finnish customs service said it had seized the vessel's cargo and that the Eagle S was believed to belong to Russia's so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers that seek to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.
Two fibre-optic cables owned by Finnish operator Elisa linking Finland and Estonia were broken, while a third link between the two countries owned by China's Citic was damaged, Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom said.
A fourth internet cable running between Finland and Germany and belonging to Finnish group Cinia was also believed to have been severed, the agency said.
"We are coordinating closely with our allies and stand ready to support their investigations," a spokesperson for the US National Security Council said, adding that the incident underscored the need for closer international cooperation on safeguarding critical undersea infrastructure.
Finnish authorities say the 658 megawatt Estlink 2 transformer power station suffered an outage that left just one other electricity connection to Estonia available. (Reuters: Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva)
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also said in a post on X that the organisation is monitoring the investigations into the incident and is prepared "to provide further support" to the countries.
Both the Finnish and Estonian governments held extraordinary meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, they said in separate statements.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to technical malfunction and accidents.
The European Union said it strongly condemned any deliberate destruction of the continent's infrastructure.
"We commend the Finnish authorities for their swift action in boarding the suspected vessel," a joint statement from EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the European Commission, the bloc's executive body, said.
Repairing the 170 kilometre Estlink 2 interconnector will take months and the outage raised the risk of a strained power supply during the winter, operator Fingrid said in a statement.
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said that his country would continue to have sufficient access to electricity.
The Eagle S Panamax oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 electricity cable at 10:26am local time on Wednesday, a Reuters review of MarineTraffic ship tracking data showed, identical to the time when Fingrid said the power outage occurred.
United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLCFZ, which according to MarineTraffic data owns the Eagle S, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peninsular Maritime, which, according to MarineTraffic acts as a technical manager for the ship, declined to comment outside of the company's opening hours.
'Attacks against our vital structures'
Estonia's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement on Thursday that damage to subsea installations in the Baltic Sea has become so frequent that it is difficult to believe the latest incident was caused by accident or poor seamanship.
Russia rejects claims of sabotage on undersea cables in Europe, Danish military monitors Chinese ship
Photo shows a black and white ship with chinese writing in the ocean
"We must understand that damage to submarine infrastructure has become more systematic and thus must be regarded as attacks against our vital structures," Mr Tsahkna said.
The 658 megawatt Estlink 2 outage began at midday local time on Wednesday, leaving only the 358MW Estlink 1 in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.
Twelve Western countries on December 16 said they had agreed on measures to "disrupt and deter" Russia's so-called shadow fleet of vessels in order to prevent sanction breaches and increase the cost to Moscow of the war in Ukraine.
"We must be able to prevent the risks posed by ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a post on X on Thursday.
Lithuanian foreign minister Kestutis Budrys also said the growing number of Baltic Sea incidents should serve as a stark and urgent warning to NATO and the European Union to significantly enhance the protection of undersea infrastructure there.
Police in Sweden are leading an investigation into the breach last month of two Baltic Sea telecom cables, an incident German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said he assumed was caused by sabotage.
Separately, Finnish and Estonian police continue to investigate damage caused last year to the Baltic connector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia, as well as several telecom cables, and have said this was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor.
In 2022 the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines running along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, in a case still under investigation by Germany.
ABC/Reuters
