Shortly after this announcement, the EU, which said it was working with the Finnish authorities on the investigation, threatened to take new sanctions against the Russian ships, while NATO offered its “assistance” in Helsinki and Tallinn.
Numerous incidents
“We strongly condemn any deliberate destruction of Europe’s critical infrastructure. The suspect vessel is part of Russia’s ghost fleet, which threatens security and the environment, while financing Russia’s war budget. We will propose other measures, including sanctions, to target this fleet”, said the European Commission and the head of EU diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, in a joint statement.
“We are following the investigations carried out by Estonia and Finland and we are ready to provide assistance” in this area, the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte, reacted on X.
The “ghost fleet” means vessels carrying embargoed Russian crude oil and petroleum products.
Many similar incidents have taken place in the Baltic since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
These actions, targeting in particular energy and communication infrastructures, are part, underline experts and political leaders, in the context of the “hybrid warfare” between Russia and Western countries, in this vast maritime area bordered by several NATO members, where Moscow also has entry points.
Two telecommunications cables were cut on November 17 and 18 in Swedish territorial waters. A Chinese-flagged bulk carrier, the Yi Peng 3 – which was over the area when this happened and has since left the area – has been in Stockholm’s sights.
The European Union had indicated that in the face of this it was strengthening measures to “protect submarine cables, in particular by improving the exchange of information, implementing new detection technologies as well as underwater repair capabilities and cooperating at international level”.
EU countries also agreed earlier this month to blacklist around 50 additional oil tankers from the “ghost fleet” Russian, used to circumvent Western sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine.
Suspicions
On Wednesday, December 25, 2024, the EstLink 2 direct current connection between Finland and Estonia was interrupted. However, the electricity supply to the Finns was not affected, assured the national operator Fingrid.
Very quickly, suspicion fell on an oil tanker sailing in the Baltic Sea at that time: the Eagle S which, leaving the port of Saint Petersburg, was on its way to Port Said in Egypt, according to the tracking site Online Ships Marine Traffic.
The coast guard and helicopters of the Finnish armed forces were then dispatched to the scene.
“We have already boarded the ship, spoken to the crew and collected evidence”said Robin Lardot, of the National Bureau of Investigation.
An investigation into “aggravated sabotage” has been opened, he added.
Finnish authorities suspect an anchor from this ship was the cause of the disconnection of the EstLink 2 cable network.
“Our patrol boat went to the area and was able to visually see that the anchors of this cargo ship were not present. So there was a very clear reason to suspect that something strange was going on,” Markku Hassinen of the Border Guard Corps explained to the press.
A similar hypothesis was formulated in November 2023, after damage caused to an underwater gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. Finnish police concluded at the time that the anchor of the Hong Kong-flagged container ship NewNew Polar Bear had caused the damage.
“We will intervene”
The outage on EstLink 2 is “very serious”, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo commented on Thursday during a press conference.
“This is why decisive and determined action” authorities “in our territorial waters sends a strong message to other ships: we will intervene”, he insisted, without specifically incriminating Russia.
At the beginning of the afternoon, the foreign ministers of Finland and Estonia had a telephone conversation.
“Damage to sensitive underwater infrastructure has become so frequent that it is difficult to believe that these are accidents or simply poor maritime maneuvers”estimated Estonian Margus Tsahkna in this regard. Dragging an anchor on the seabed can hardly be considered an accident, he insisted.
