A ship said to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” has been detained by Finnish authorities after a deep sea cable in the Baltic Sea was damaged.

Officials in Finland have launched an investigation after its Estlink 2 subsea electricity cable sustained damage on Christmas Day, which has been blamed on Russia’s Eagle S vessel. They say they boarded the tanker to probe the “grave sabotage”. The 105-mile cable has a 650-megawatt transmission capacity and was installed around 10 years ago to link electricity between Finland and the Baltic states.

The damage was so severe that officials believe it could take several months to repair, reports say. Finnish transmission system operator Fingrid representative, Arto Pahkin, said intentional malicious action has not been ruled out. He said: “This is one of the versions we are considering. Because two vessels are in the area where the cables are located.”

The Eagle S crude oil tanker ( 
Image:
Vessaltracker; e2w news)
Parkin added: “The possibility of vandalism cannot be ruled out. However, we are currently studying the situation as a whole and will inform you of the cause of the malfunction as soon as we know it.” Some reports say the Eagle S slowed down to a quarter of its speed a few minutes before it crossed Estlink 2.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the authorities are “investigating the matter.” Estonian network operator Elering said there was sufficient spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side. Suspicions have focused on Chinese-linked vessels and an alleged hybrid war by Russia over several incidents involving Baltic undersea cables.

Putin’s Russia has been accused of carrying out a hybrid war ( 
Image:
Getty Images)
Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed in November. Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said officials had to assume “sabotage”. He warned about hybrid warfare threats from Russia.

Earlier, the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines built to supply natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. There has been no conclusive finding as to who was responsible. Estlink-2 had returned to commercial use at the beginning of September after being out of service since the end of January due to a failure.