Finland has detained an oil tanker with links to Russia over concerns it intentionally damaged several deep-sea cables.
Authorities under the command of Helsinki boarded and commandeered the ship on December 26 after the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia went offline. Other cables were also destroyed.
According to a report by Reuters, the detained vessel was believed to have travelled over the spot where the cables were damaged at the same time they were destroyed.
“According to our understanding, an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage,” Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation said, insisting the country was probing a case of “grave sabotage”.
The vessel, sailing under a Cook Islands flag, was transporting Russian oil at the time, with authorities saying the vessel was part of Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet” of ships used to avoid Western sanctions.
Estimates indicated repairs to the damaged equipment could take months, with the incident likely to impact energy availability in the country over the winter.
Finland has announced a naval operation to protect the remaining Estlink 1 power cable connecting the two countries.
“If there is a threat to the critical undersea infrastructure in our region, there will also be a response,” Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said on December 27.
Undersea infrastructure sabotage has become relatively common in the Baltic sea over the past year. Finnish and Estonian authorities were already investigating how the Balticconnector gas pipeline between the two countries was damaged a few months ago.
The destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline was a “good thing for the whole civilised world”, a Ukrainian suspected of being involved in the sabotage operation has claimed. https://t.co/A7ND1Ygbc4
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 18, 2024
