Four Submarine Cables Between Estonia, Finland Damaged, Allegedly by Russian Shadow Fleet Vessel

Three communication cables and one electrical cable between Estonia and Finland have been damaged. It is suspected that at least one of them was damaged by a vessel of Russia's ‘shadow fleet’.

‘On Wednesday evening, Elisa Eesti AS and CITIC Telecom CPC reported to the Consumer Protection and Technical Supervision Authority (TTJA) about the disruption of submarine cables between Estonia and Finland. The malfunctions concern three different communication cables,’ the ERR portal reported.

According to the Technical Supervision Department, two communication cables belonging to Elisa were cut, and one communication cable belonging to CITIC Telecom was damaged.

At the same time, on Wednesday, Estonian and Finnish system operators Elering and Fingrid reported a failure of the EstLink 2 power cable.

Fingrid spokesman Arto Pahkin said that the possibility of terrorism or vandalism cannot be ruled out. According to him, at the same time as the failure of the electrical connection was detected, two vessels were passing over the submarine cable: the oil tanker Eagle S flying the flag of the Cook Islands and the container ship Xin Xin Tian 2 flying the flag of Hong Kong. Both were travelling from St Petersburg to Egypt.

According to Yle, Finland is already investigating the damage to the EstLink 2 electric cable as vandalism, suspected to be a vessel of the Russian ‘shadow fleet’. It is believed that the damage to the cable in the Gulf of Finland was most likely caused by the anchor of the Eagle S tanker, which was travelling from St Petersburg, Russia.

When the border police approached the tanker and ordered it to raise the anchor, only its chain came to the surface. 

The Eagle S is in Finnish territorial waters and has already been stopped, so the situation is much better in terms of investigative possibilities than if the vessel had managed to sail into international waters. 

The head of the investigation said that it is currently being investigated whether it was an accident or deliberate sabotage.

‘At the moment, our assumption is that it is a vessel from the shadow fleet,’ said Customs Chief Sami Rakshit. According to him, the tanker is carrying unleaded petrol, which it loaded in a Russian port. The vessel now faces an investigation for violating sanctions. 

As The Gaze previously reported, in early December, an internet cable broke down on the land between Sweden and Finland.