A fault was reported on the line called Estlink 2 on Wednesday. On Thursday, Finnish authorities reported problems with several telecommunications cables.
Finnish police and border guard units boarded the Cook Islands-flagged tanker Eagle S at dawn on Thursday and took control of it, said Jari Liukku, Helsinki police chief. He added that
the vessel was detained in Finland’s exclusive economic zone and then directed to Finnish territorial waters.
According to the investigators, the damage to the power line could have been caused by the anchor of the tanker.
The Finnish operator Fingrid announced that the repair work on the 170 kilometer long line can take months which can cause interruptions in the power supply, especially in the summer months.
According to the Finnish customs authorities, the ship is registered in the Cook Islands, but they start from the assumption that
it could be one of the oil tankers that are part of the Russian shadow fleet
– announced the Finnish public television YLE. In the case of the latter, we are talking about ships that Russia uses to evade the oil price limitation mechanism and to export other products – subject to sanctions. The affected ships operate without the insurance and official control of established Western service providers.
Recently, there have been several incidents related to the telecommunications and energy cable system running in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions, which were often traced back to accidents caused by, for example, ship anchors. However, undersea pipelines are part of vital infrastructure and can therefore become targets for sabotage or military operations.
The cover image is an illustration. Cover image source: Getty Images
Source: www.portfolio.hu
