Baltic Sea Power Cable Severed In Latest Incident

UAE-owned oil tanker accused of being part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” has been seized by Finland, in the latest incident of damaged subsea cables in the Baltic sea.

Sky News reported that the Finnish coastguard has boarded and seized an oil tanker named by authorities as the Eagle S. Helsinki Police Chief Jari Liukku reportedly said the vessel was boarded by a coastguard crew that took command and sailed the vessel into Finnish waters.

“From our side we are investigating grave sabotage,” Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation was quoted by Sky News as saying. “According to our understanding, an anchor… has caused the damage,” he added.

The Finnish customs service reportedly said that the Eagle S was believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers that seek to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.

What happened

The Eagle S is registered in the Cook Islands and is reportedly owned by United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLCFZ.

The tanker is suspected of causing the outage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia on Wednesday.

According to Sky News, the Eagle S Panamax oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 electricity cable at 10.26am on Wednesday. This was the same time when power operator Fingrid said the power outage occurred.

The 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 outage means only the 358 MW Estlink 1 remains in operation between the two countries.

The ship is also being investigated after three internet lines were severed and a fourth damaged, according to Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom.

Repairing the 106-mile (170km) Estlink 2 power cable will reportedly take months, and the outage raised the risk of a strained power supply during the winter, Fingrid was quoted as saying in a statement.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal reportedly said his country would continue to have sufficient access to electricity.

According to the Finnish Border Guard, a Finnish Defence Forces Rauma-class missile boat and the Border Guard patrol vessel Uisko operate in the area surrounding the seized tanker whilst the criminal investigation is conducted.

The vessel suspected offense is aggravated criminal mischief, which is currently “secured by the police rapid response unit Karhu and the Border Guard tactical team.”

Cable attack responses

Both the Finnish and Estonian governments held emergency meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, they reportedly said in separate statements.

Meanwhile the European Union reportedly 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,” said a joint statement from EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the European Commission.

“We are co-ordinating closely with our allies and stand ready to support their investigations,” said a spokesperson for the US National Security Council.

“We are following investigations by Estonia and Finland, and we stand ready to provide further support,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a post on X.

Baltic sea

The fresh incident in the Baltic Sea comes amid heightened tensions in the Baltic Sea, following concern at ongoing incidents that are damaging local subsea cables.

Subsea cables of course carry the vast bulk (99 percent) of all online data or ‘traffic’, which has prompted growing concern about their vulnerability in the face of the tense geopolitical situation, amid Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

On 17 and 18th November, two undersea cables located in northern Europe (in the Baltic sea), were severed in less than 24 hours, prompting concern over potential sabotage.

A Chinese ship (Yi Peng Three) was detained by the Danish navy, but according to the Guardian, has since sailed off after China reportedly denied a Swedish request to board the vessel.

The Swedish foreign minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, reportedly said on Monday that China had not co-operated with Sweden’s request to allow Swedish prosecutors onboard.

An investigation is ongoing in Sweden, Denmark and Germany whether this Chinese freighter deliberately damaged the cables by dropping and dragging its anchor along the seabed for more than 160km (100 miles).

It comes after The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which carried natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, were damaged in explosions in September 2022.

Then in October 2023, the Balticconnector gas pipeline was extensively damaged, and Finnish investigators recovered a large ship’s anchor near the spot which was linked to another Chinese container vessel.

UN meeting

Earlier this month a new body belonging to the United Nations with the remit to protect critical submarine or subsea cables, held its first virtual meeting.

The new advisory body seeks to improve cable resilience by promoting best practices and principles for all governments and industry players. It is tasked with ensuring the timely deployment and speedy repair of submarine cables, to reduce the risk of damage and enhance the continuity of affected communications.

However the body won’t have the power to assign blame for cable damage.