Finnish coastguard boards tanker suspected of causing power and internet cable outages
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Cook Islands-registered Eagle S was carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea. Finnish authorities have seized a ship carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on suspicion it caused the outage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia a day earlier, and that it also damaged or broke four internet lines.
On Thursday, a Finnish coastguard crew boarded the Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S. The crew took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coastguard official told a press conference. Robin Lardot, director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, said: “From our side we are investigating grave sabotage. According to our understanding, an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage.”.
The Finnish customs service said it had seized the vessel’s cargo and that the Eagle S was believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of ageing tankers that seek to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil. Two fibre-optic cables owned by Finnish operator Elisa linking Finland and Estonia were broken, while a third link between the two countries owned by China’s Citic was damaged, Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom said.
A fourth internet cable running between Finland and Germany and belonging to Finnish group Cinia was also believed to have been severed, the agency said. Both the Finnish and the Estonian governments will hold extraordinary meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, they said in separate statements.
