Finland seizes Russian-linked ‘shadow ship’ after key undersea energy hyperlink and knowledge cables between Finland and Estonia had been broken
Finnish authorities have detained a Russia-linked ship as they investigate whether it damaged a Baltic Sea power cable and several data cables, according to police and news media reports.
In the latest incident involving disruption of key infrastructure, Finnish police and border guards boarded the Eagle S at just past midnight on Thursday and took over the command bridge, Helsinki Police Chief Jari Liukku said at a news conference.
The vessel was intercepted in Finland’s exclusive economic zone and taken to Finnish territorial waters, police said.
Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands but was described by Finnish customs officials as a suspected part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of fuel tankers that state-run companies have used to circumnavigate sanctions, Yle television reported.
The fleet is made up of ageing vessels with obscure ownership, acquired to evade the West’s economic controls over the war against Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance.
The Eagle S’s anchor is suspected of causing damage to the Estlink-2 power cable, which takes electricity from Finland to Estonia across the Baltic Sea, after it went down just after noon on Christmas Day.
Eagle S crude oil tanker sailing under the flag of the Cook Islands has been seized by Finnish authorities
EstLink 2 power cable
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council Meeting on December 26, 2024
The incident cut the electricity connection on Estlink 2 between EU and NATO states Finland and Estonia on December 25.
Finnish transmission system operator Fingrid representative, Arto Pahkin, said intentional malicious action has not been ruled out.
‘This is one of the versions we are considering. Because two vessels are in the area where the cables are located.’
Pahkin said: ‘The possibility of vandalism cannot be ruled out. However, we are currently studying the situation as a whole and will inform you of the cause of the malfunction as soon as we know it.’
In the hours after the incident, it was reported the Hong Kong-registered Xin Xin Tian 2, had passed over the cable around the time the Estlink 2 outage occurred — at 12:26.
That ship is owned by logistics company Hainan Yangpu, part of the Torgmol group, which has close ties to Russia.
But Finnish authorities have since turned their suspicions toward the Eagle S, which was also sailing in the area at the time of the cable failure and is reported to have slowed down to a quarter of its speed a few minutes before it crossed Estlink 2.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the authorities are ‘investigating the matter’, while network operator Elering assured that there was sufficient spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side.
The Hong Kong-flagged Xin Xin Tian 2 vessel could have been responsible for the EstLink 2 power cable cut in the waters of the Gulf of Finland
The latest incident cut the electricity connection on Estlink 2 between EU and NATO states Finland and Estonia on December 25
Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed in November.
Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius said officials had to assume ‘sabotage’, without providing evidence or saying who might have been responsible.
The remark came during a speech in which he discussed hybrid warfare threats from Russia – though investigators quickly zeroed in on a Chinese ship, which had left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on November 15.
A Reuters analysis of MarineTraffic data showed the vessel’s coordinates corresponded to the time and place of the breaches.
Earlier, the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines built to supply natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022.
There has been no conclusive finding as to who was responsible.
Estlink-2 had returned to commercial use at the beginning of September after being out of service since the end of January due to a failure.
The Chinese ship, the bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 is anchored in the sea of Kattegat, near the city of Granaa in Jutland, Denmark, on November 20, 2024
The Estlink-2 incident comes after China said on Monday it had provided information and documents for an open investigation into the severing of the two Baltic Sea undersea cables in November, though it and Sweden disagreed over how transparent Beijing had been in the case.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a news briefing in Beijing that China had invited Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark to participate in and complete the inquiry.
She spoke about the incident when asked about a Financial Times report that Sweden had criticised China for refusing full access despite an open inquiry, and for allegedly barring a Swedish prosecutor from boarding the Chinese freighter vessel Yi Peng 3 linked to the cable breach.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said China had not heeded the government’s request for the prosecutor to be able to conduct the preliminary investigation on board.
‘Our request that Swedish prosecutors together with, among others, the police should be allowed to take certain investigative measures within the framework of the preliminary investigation on board remains,’ Stenergard told Reuters. ‘We have been very clear about this with China.’
Stenergard said Sweden hoped to continue its dialogue with China with the aim of giving the police and prosecutors the possibility to investigate the cable breaches.
