Finland probes tanker suspected of power outages in Baltic Sea

An investigation has been opened after the power was cut between Finland and Estonia on Christmas Day.

An oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port and is suspected of the sabotage of an undersea powercable linking Finland and Estonia is being investigated, Finnish authorities said.

The Estlink 2 submarine cable that carries electricity from Finland to Estonia was disconnected from the grid on Christmas Day.

Director of Finland’s national bureau of investigation Robin Lardot said a probe into the oil tanker Eagle S, which flies under the flag of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been opened.

The ship was heading to Port Said in Egypt when it was located in the Gulf of Finland and escorted by Finnish authorities towards the coast of Porkkala, around 30 kilometres west of the capital.

A Finnish Border Guard's ship Turva in front of the oil tanker Eagle S on the sea near Porkkalanniemi. Picture: Finnish Border Guard/AFP

“The assumption at the moment is that it is a shadow fleet vessel and the cargo was unleaded petrol loaded in a Russian port,” said Sami Rakshit, director general of Finnish Customs.

The shadow fleet refers to ships that transport Russian crude and oil products which are embargoed due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Europeans are definitely getting better at timely detection and intervention, but protecting the infrastructure would be impossible short of stopping traffic to Russia which would be an act of war,” professor at the Australian National University’s Strategic Defence Studies Centre Stephan Fruehling told news.com.au.

“So, boarding and impounding ships after the act is the next step that Finland seems to now have taken,” he added.

Police suspect that the oil tanker’s anchor might have damaged the power cable.

Finland’s prime minister Petteri Orpo did not specifically incriminate Russia though told a press conference that the two countries had not yet had any contact over the incident.

Damages to critical underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea have become increasingly common, something Estonia’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna has described as “hard to believe,” at a press conference.

Bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 is a Chinese ship accused of having links to the same “sabotage” behaviour as oil carrier Eagle S. Picture: Mikkel Berg Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP

Mr Tsahkna later added in a statement that ”dragging an anchor on the seafloor can hardly be considered an accident.”

“The Finland-Estonia incident was the third such incident, in the context of a range of other suspected Russian sabotage events across Europe,” Mr Fruehling said.

In September 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions were discovered in the Baltic Sea, with two in Denmark and two Swedish territorial waters.

These gas pipelines ran from Russia to Germany through the sea and came under scrutiny after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Last month, two undersea cables were disrupted, one travelled between Lithiuania and Sweden, while the other linked Finland and Germany.

China has also been accused of taking part in “sabotage” in the region.

The Balticconnector pipeline that runs from Estonia to Finland was damaged earlier this year, with officials pointing to a Chinese cargo ship that claimed that the incident was the result of a “storm,” the South China Morning Post reports.

On December 24, China denied a request for prosecutors to conduct an investigation into the Chinese ship linked to the severed cables in the Baltic.

– With additional reporting from AFP.