Finnish authorities on Thursday seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion that it caused the failure of a submarine cable between Finland and Estonia a day earlier and also damaged or disrupted four internet lines.
The Cook Islands-registered ship, referred to by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded by a Finnish Coast Guard crew who took command and drove the vessel into Finnish waters, a coast guard official said at a news conference.
“From our side, we are investigating serious sabotage,” said Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.
“It is our understanding that an anchor on the ship being examined is responsible for the damage.”
The Finnish Customs Service said it had seized the ship’s cargo and suspected the Eagle S was among Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of old tankers seeking to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.
Two fiber optic cables from Finnish operator Elisa connecting Finland and Estonia were cut, while a third connection between the two countries, owned by Chinese company Citic, was damaged, Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom said.
A fourth internet cable between Finland and Germany, owned by the Finnish group Cinia, was also cut, the agency said.
“We are coordinating closely with our allies and stand ready to support their investigations,” a U.S. National Security Council spokesman said, adding that the incident underscored the need for closer international cooperation to protect critical underwater infrastructure.
“We are following Estonia and Finland’s investigations and stand ready to provide further support,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a post on Social Media X.
Both the Finnish and Estonian governments held extraordinary meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, separate statements said.
After a series of failures of power cables, telecommunications connections and gas pipelines since 2022, the countries bordering the Baltic Sea are on high alert for possible acts of sabotage, although technical malfunctions and accidents also occur with underwater equipment.
The European Union said it strongly condemns any deliberate destruction of the continent’s infrastructure.
“We commend the Finnish authorities for their quick action in boarding the suspicious ship,” said a joint statement from EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body.
Repairing the 170-kilometer-long Estlink 2 interconnector will take months and the failure increases the risk of an overloaded power supply in winter, operator Fingrid said in a statement.
However, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said her country would continue to have sufficient access to electricity.
The Eagle S Panamax oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 power cable at 10:26 a.m. GMT on Wednesday, a Reuters review of MarineTraffic ship tracking data showed, identical to when Fingrid said the blackout occurred.
United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLCFZ, which MarineTraffic data shows owns the Eagle S, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peninsular Maritime, which MarineTraffic said is acting as technical manager for the ship, declined to comment outside of company hours.
“Disturb and scare off”
Damage to underwater facilities in the Baltic Sea has become so common that it is difficult to believe that it was merely the result of an accident or poor seamanship, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.
“We must understand that damage to submarine infrastructure has become more systematic and therefore must be viewed as attacks on our vital structures,” Tsahkna said.
The outage of Estlink 2, with a capacity of 658 megawatts (MW), began at midday local time on Wednesday, leaving only Estlink 1, with a capacity of 358 MW, remaining in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.
Twelve Western countries said on December 16 that they had agreed on measures to “disrupt and deter” Russia’s so-called shadow fleet to prevent sanctions violations and increase the costs of the war in Ukraine for Moscow.
“We must be able to prevent the risks posed by ships in the Russian shadow fleet,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a post on Social Media X on Thursday.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said the growing number of incidents in the Baltic Sea should serve as a clear and urgent warning to NATO and the European Union to significantly improve protection of underwater infrastructure there.
Police in Sweden are conducting an investigation into the breakage of two Baltic telecommunications cables last month. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he believed the incident was caused by sabotage.
Separately, Finnish and Estonian police are continuing to investigate damage caused last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia, as well as several telecommunications cables, and have said it was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor .
In 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany, which run along the seabed in the same waters, were blown up, a case still being investigated by Germany.
