Eagle S tanker brought to Finland's southern peninsula Porkkala after border guards discover anchor is missing
Finnish police took possession of a vessel suspected to have been involved in damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, according to media reports.
On Wednesday, Finnish authorities said that an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia had been damaged, marking the latest in a series of incidents involving critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.
“Eagle S, a tanker registered in the Cook Islands, entered Finland's territorial waters. The vessel's involvement in causing the rupture is under investigation,” Finnish police said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Helsinki Police Department and the Border Guard have conducted a tactical operation on the vessel. The authorities have taken investigative measures on the vessel, with access there provided by the Finnish Border Guard and the Defence Forces helicopters,” it added.
Finnish public broadcaster Yle reported that police took possession of the vessel and brought it to the peninsula of Porkkala in the southern part of the country.
The border guards requested the Eagle S crew raise the anchor, which turned out to not be in place, and found that there was only the anchor chain left.
Finnish power grid operator Fingrid said on Wednesday that the Estlink 2 interconnector went offline around noon local time (1000GMT).
Fingrid's head of operations Arto Pahkin previously told Yle that sabotage could not be ruled out and investigations are continuing.
- Series of infrastructure incidents
The Baltic Sea has been the scene of several high-profile infrastructure incidents since the start 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 Rostock, Germany 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 denies and even ridicules the claims.
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.