Finland seizes tanker carrying Russian oil on suspicion of causing internet and power cable outages.

Finnish authorities on Thursday detained a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion that it had caused an outage in an undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia the previous day, and had also destroyed or disabled four internet lines.

A Coast Guard official said in a press conference that the ship registered in the Cook Islands, which the authorities called “Eagle S,” was boarded by a Finnish Coast Guard crew who took command and sailed the ship to Finnish waters.

“For our part, we are investigating a serious sabotage incident,” said Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.

He added, “According to our understanding, it was the anchor of the ship that is under investigation that caused the damage.”

The Finnish Customs Service said it confiscated the ship’s cargo, and the Eagle S is believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of old tankers seeking to evade sanctions imposed on the sale of Russian oil.

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Trafficcom, said that two fiber-optic cables owned by the Finnish company Elisa and linking Finland and Estonia were broken, while a third link between the two countries, owned by the Chinese company CITIC, was damaged.

The agency said that a fourth internet cable running between Finland and Germany and owned by the Finnish group Senia is also believed to have been cut.

“We are coordinating closely with our allies and stand ready to support their investigations,” a US National Security Council spokesperson said, adding that the incident underscores the need for closer international cooperation on protecting critical undersea infrastructure.

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

The Finnish and Estonian governments held extraordinary meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, the Finnish and Estonian governments said in separate statements.

The Baltic Sea countries are on high alert in anticipation of possible acts of sabotage after a series of outages in power cables, communications lines and gas pipelines since 2022, although undersea equipment is also vulnerable to technical malfunctions and accidents.

The European Union said it strongly condemns any deliberate destruction of infrastructure on the continent.

A joint statement issued by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, said: “We commend the Finnish authorities for their swift action in boarding the suspected ship.”

The network operator, Fingrid, said in a statement that repairing the 170-kilometre Estlink 2 electrical link will take months, and the outage has increased the risk of power supply strain during the winter.

However, Estonian Prime Minister Kristin Michel said that his country will continue to have enough electricity.

A Reuters review of MarineTraffic ship-tracking data showed that the Eagle S Panamax oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 power cable at 10:26 a.m. GMT on Wednesday, the same time Fingrid said the power outage occurred.

UAE-based Caravella LLCFZ, which owns the Eagle S according to MarineTraffic data, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peninsular Maritime, which, according to MarineTraffic, serves as the ship’s technical manager, declined to comment outside company hours.

“Disruption and deterrence”

Damage to undersea facilities in the Baltic Sea is now so frequent that it is difficult to believe that this happened due to a mere accident or poor sea navigation, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.

“We must understand that damage to submarine infrastructure is becoming more systematic and therefore should be considered as attacks against our vital structures,” Tsahkna said.

The outage of 658 megawatts (MW) Estlink 2 began at midday local time on Wednesday, leaving only 358 MW Estlink 1 in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.

Twelve Western countries said on December 16 that they had agreed on measures to “disable and deter” Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of ships in order to prevent sanctions violations and increase the cost of the war in Ukraine to Moscow.

“We must be able to prevent the dangers posed by ships of the Russian Shadow Fleet,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a post on social media site X on Thursday.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Podris said the increasing number of Baltic Sea incidents should serve as a stark and urgent warning for NATO and the European Union to significantly strengthen the protection of undersea infrastructure there.

Swedish police are leading an investigation into the hacking of two communications cables in the Baltic Sea last month, an incident that German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he believed was due to sabotage.

Separately, Finnish and Estonian police continue to investigate damage last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia, as well as several communications cables, and said it was most likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor.

In 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipelines extending from Russia to Germany and running along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, in a case that is still under investigation in Germany.