NATO is ready to help Finland and Estonia as Finnish authorities probe an oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port over the possible "sabotage" of a power cable linking the two member countries, alliance chief Mark Rutte has said.
"Spoke with (Estonian Prime Minister) Kristen Michal about reported possible sabotage of Baltic Sea cables. NATO stands in solidarity with Allies and condemns any attacks on critical infrastructure.
"We are following investigations by Estonia and Finland, and we stand ready to provide further support," Mr Rutte said on X.
Earlier, Finnish authorities said they were investigating an oil tanker that sailed from a Russian port for the "sabotage" of a power cable linking Finland and Estonia that was damaged the previous day.
The Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded by a Finnish coast guard crew which took command in the Baltic Sea and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coast guard official told a press conference.
"From our side we are investigating grave sabotage," Robin Lardot, Director of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, said.
"According to our understanding an anchor of the vessel that is under investigation has caused the damage," he added.
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.
Both the Finnish and the Estonian governments will hold extraordinary meetings to assess the situation, they said in separate statements.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to technical malfunction and accidents.
Repairing the 170km long Estlink 2 interconnector will take months, and the outage raised the risk of power shortages during the winter, operator Fingrid said in a statement.
The Eagle S Panamax oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 electricity cable at 10.26am yesterday, a Reuters review of MarineTraffic ship tracking data showed, identical to the time when Fingrid said the power outage had occurred.
The ship was stationary near the Finnish coast this afternoon, with a Finnish patrol vessel stopped nearby, the data showed.
United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLCFZ, which according to MarineTraffic data owns the Eagle S, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peninsular Maritime, which, according to MarineTraffic acts as a technical manager for the ship, declined to comment outside of the company's opening hours.
The EU threatened further sanctions against Russian vessels on foot of the Finnish investigation into possible Russian "sabotage" of a power cable linking the country and Estonia.
"The suspected vessel is part of Russia's shadow fleet, which threatens security and the environment, while funding Russia's war budget. We will propose further measures, including sanctions, to target this fleet," the European Commission and the EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said in a joint statement.
Damage to subsea installations in the Baltic Sea has now become so frequent that it is difficult to believe this was caused merely by accident or poor seamanship, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.
"We must understand that damage to submarine infrastructure has become more systematic and thus must be regarded as attacks against our vital structures," Mr Tsahkna said.
The 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 outage began at midday yesterday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.
Twelve Western countries on 16 December said they had agreed measures to "disrupt and deter" Russia's so-called shadow fleet of vessels in order to prevent sanctions breaches and increase the cost to Moscow of the war in Ukraine.
"We must be able to prevent the risks posed by ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a post on social media X.
'Stark and urgent warning'
Lithuanian foreign minister Kestutis Budrys said the growing number of Baltic Sea incidents should serve as a stark and urgent warning to NATO and the European Union to significantly enhance the protection of undersea infrastructure there.
Police in Sweden are leading an investigation into the breach last month of two Baltic Sea telecom cables, an incident German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said he assumed was caused by sabotage.
Separately, Finnish and Estonian police continue to investigate damage caused last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia, as well as several telecom cables, and have said this was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor.
In 2022, the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines running along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, in a case still under investigation by Germany.
