Finnish authorities seize vessel suspected of damaging Baltic undersea cable

Finnish authorities on Wednesday seized a vessel suspected of damaging an undersea communications cable between Finland and Estonia, whereas Swedish authorities found two breaks in a special submarine cable connecting to Tallinn.

Since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many consultants and politicians have considered the damages to power and communications infrastructure within the Baltic Sea as a part of Moscow’s “hybrid warfare” in opposition to Western international locations.

The Fee “is carefully monitoring” the Finnish case, the bloc’s Government vice-president for technological sovereignty and safety Henna Virkunen mentioned. “Along with the Member States and NATO, we’re ready to counter hybrid threats,” she added.

The Finnish police didn’t launch particulars in regards to the origin of the vessel suspected of being answerable for the injury brought about to the cable. In line with the nationwide public broadcaster Yle, it was a cargo ship flying the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which had departed from Saint Petersburg, Russia, and was sure for Haifa, Israel.

The cable belongs to the Finnish telecommunications group Elisa and is situated inside Estonia’s unique financial zone, the police mentioned in a press release.

On the identical day, the Swedish Publish and Telecom Company (PTS) mentioned that it had found two breaks in a fibre cable between Sweden and Estonia.

In December 2024, the Finnish authorities accused the captain and two senior officers of a Cook dinner Islands-registered oil tanker of dragging the anchor on the seabed for round 90 kilometres, damaging 5 undersea cables within the Gulf of Finland.

Final October, a court docket in Helsinki dismissed the case.

(ow)