Another cable break in the Baltic Sea – politics

At around 12:30 on Wednesday, damage was discovered to Estlink 2, one of two power transmission cables between Finland and Estonia. The rupture occurred Wednesday evening on the part of the 170-kilometer-long cable somewhere in Finnish waters. At a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Finnish police chief Robin Lardot said the damage was most likely from the Adler S The cause was a ship that sails under the flag of the Cook Islands but is part of the Russian shadow fleet.

According to the monitoring service Marinetraffic, the Eagle S was traveling over the Estlink-2 cable at a greatly reduced speed at exactly the time when the power transmission stopped. When the Finnish border guards die Adler S When asked to raise her anchor, only the anchor chain appears. The police detained the ship and initiated a criminal investigation into serious vandalism.

Prime Minister Orpo calls for better control of the Russian shadow fleet

Estlink 2 is operated by the Finnish electricity company Fingrid. Engineer Kimmo Nepola, who is responsible for the submarine cables at Fingrid, said the cable has a diameter of 15 centimeters, weighs 80 kilograms per meter and is also covered in a steel jacket, which is why it requires “great mechanical force” to pull it together Damage.

Die Adler S had been in the Russian port of Ust-Luga near Saint Petersburg before the incident. They are said to have loaded 35,000 tons of unleaded gasoline there. The British Shipping Magazine Lloyd’s list counts dying Adler S The so-called shadow fleet, hundreds of mostly outdated and insufficiently insured ships, which Russia uses to circumvent Western sanctions.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb wrote on X that the risks posed by ships in the Russian shadow fleet must be countered. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that no conclusions could currently be drawn about Russia’s involvement in the incident. At the same time, however, he demands that the ships of the shadow fleet operating for Russia be better controlled.

Just two weeks ago, the EU agreed in its 15th sanctions package that the Baltic Sea neighbors would tighten controls on ships in the Russian shadow fleet by requiring access to insurance documents when such ships pass through the Öresund or the English Channel. In addition, the EU had sanctioned 52 ships with a ban on access and services in European ports; In total, the ban now applies to 79 tankers. However, experts assume that the shadow fleet comprises around 400 ships.

The damage is part of a whole list of similar incidents

At midday on Thursday, Finnish transport and communications agency Traficom announced that four communications cables had also been destroyed: three that run between Finland and Helsinki and one that connects Helsinki to Rostock.

The damage is part of a whole list of similar incidents: In October 2023, a Chinese ship tore open a Finnish-Estonian gas pipeline with its anchor. In November of this year, two communication cables connecting Germany and Finland and Sweden and Lithuania were cut. In these incidents, too, a Chinese ship is strongly suspected of having used its anchor as a means of destruction.