UPDATE: NATO and Estonia respond to severed Baltic Sea cable
Reuters reports that the detained oil tanker, flying the Cook Islands flag, is believed to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet," according to Finland's customs authority.
Maritime tracking services show that the Eagle S "clearly slowed down" when the cable failure occurred. Russian threats to undersea power lines had been repeatedly highlighted in the past.
Finnish police and border guards are now investigating whether the incident is connected to foreign vessels that were passing through the Gulf of Finland at the time of the outage.
The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reports that the Estlink 2 electrical connection between Finland and Estonia was severed on Christmas Day.
At the time of the disconnection, the power transfer from Finland to Estonia was 658 megawatts. The cable damage is being investigated as a potential case of severe vandalism.
Earlier, the Financial Times stated that the Eagle S, a Russian shadow fleet tanker registered in the Cook Islands, was carrying Russian oil to Egypt and passed over the cable at the time of the incident.
The tanker is also being investigated for possible connections to other recent disruptions of undersea communication cables in the Baltic Sea.
"The disconnection of the power line follows a series of suspected sabotage attacks on Baltic Sea infrastructure," notes the British daily.
Source: IAR/Reuters/Helsingin Sanomat /Financial Times
(m p)
Read more about this subject: