ISTANBUL

Estonia announced on Friday that the country will send its naval patrols near the Estlink 1 electricity cable connecting it to Finland in the Baltic Sea, following the suspected sabotage of a parallel cable, Estlink 2, on Christmas Day.

"We’ve decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland," Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said on X.

The disruption of Estlink 2 marks the latest in a series of incidents targeting underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. The incident comes just over a month after two telecommunications cables were severed in Swedish territorial waters, raising concerns over regional maritime security.

In Finland, authorities have identified an oil tanker, Eagle S, as a vessel of interest in the investigation. The tanker, registered under the Cook Islands flag and believed to be part of Russia’s "shadow fleet," departed from a Russian port and was en route to Egypt’s Port Said at the time of the incident.

Sami Rakshit, Director General of Finnish Customs, said the ship was likely transporting unleaded petrol embargoed under international sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, British daily, The Guardian reported.

“The assumption at the moment is that it is a shadow fleet vessel,” Rakshit stated.

Investigators suspect the Eagle S may have dragged its anchor, damaging the submarine power cable. Estonia’s Foreign Minister, Margus Tsahkna, expressed on Thursday skepticism over the accidental nature of such incidents, noting their increasing frequency.

“The damages to critical underwater infrastructure have become so frequent that it’s hard to believe they are accidents or just bad maritime maneuvers,” Tsahkna remarked, adding that dragging an anchor across the seafloor was unlikely to occur unintentionally.

Baltic Sea incidents

The Baltic Sea has been the scene of several high-profile infrastructure incidents since the onset of Russia's war on Ukraine in February 2022, which heightened tensions in the region.

The latest incident follows the October shutdown of a Finnish-Estonian undersea gas pipeline after the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship reportedly damaged it.

Last month, two telecommunications cables linking Sweden and Denmark were severed. Authorities suspect the Chinese vessel Yi Peng 3, which sailed over the cables, but China denied Sweden's request to investigate the ship.

The Arelion submarine cable, which connects the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania, and the C-Lion 1 submarine communications cable that runs between Finland’s capital Helsinki and Germany’s Rostock city were also damaged in mid-November near Sweden's territorial waters.

European officials have suggested that sabotage could be behind the recent disruptions, potentially linked to Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine. But the Kremlin has rejected the claims, calling them “absurd” and “laughable.”

The September 2022 explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe remain unresolved, underscoring the region’s vulnerability to undersea attacks on key infrastructure.

Authorities across the Baltic region continue to investigate these incidents amid heightened vigilance as geopolitical tensions show no sign of abating.