Finnish investigators find sign of anchor drag on bottom of Baltic Sea after suspected cable damage

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) — Finnish investigators looking into the damage to a Power cable to the Baltic Sea and several data cables said they found a sign of anchor pulling on the seabed, apparently from a Russian-linked vessel that has already been seized.

The discovery has heightened concerns about alleged sabotage by Russia’s “shadow fleet” of fuel tankers – old vessels with obscure ownership acquired at evade Western sanctions in the middle the war in Ukraine and operates without Western regulated insurance.

The Estlink-2 power cable, which transmits power from Finland to Estonia across the Baltic Sea, fell on December 25 after a rupture. It had little impact on services, but it followed damage to two data cables and the Nord Stream gas pipelinesboth being called sabotage.

Finland’s chief police investigator, Sami Paila, said late Sunday that the anchor’s path continued for “tens of kilometers (miles) … if not nearly 100 kilometers (62 miles).”

Paila added to Finnish TV station Yle: “Our current understanding is that the mark in question is that of the (seized) Eagle S anchor. We were able to clarify this issue through underwater research.”

Without elaborating, Paila said authorities have “a preliminary understanding of what happened at sea, how the anchor mark was created there” and stressed that “the issue of intent is a completely critical issue which must be clarified in the preliminary investigation”.

On Saturday, the vessel seized he was escorted to anchor in the vicinity of the port of Porvoo to facilitate the investigation, officials said. He is being investigated on criminal charges of aggravated interference with telecommunications, aggravated vandalism and aggravated regulatory offence.

The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands, but has been described by Finnish customs officials and the European Union’s executive commission as part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers. Russia’s use of the ships has raised environmental concerns about accidents, given their age and unreliable insurance coverage.

Following the cable break, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said last week that the military alliance, which Finland joined last year, will intensify patrols in the Baltic Sea region.

The Finnish Coast Guard said on Monday that another tanker bound for a Russian port had an engine failure and drifted, then anchored in the Gulf of Finland south of the Hanko Peninsula. The guard said he was notified Sunday night.

Registered in Panama, the M/T Jazz was en route to Primorsk, Russia from Sudan without a cargo of oil. Finnish authorities have dispatched a tugboat and a patrol vessel to ensure the vessel does not drift and to prevent any environmental damage.

Coast Guard Regional Director Janne Ryönänkoski said there was no immediate risk to seabed infrastructure.

Earlier on Monday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “sabotage in Europe has increased” since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Kallas told German newspaper Welt that the recent “sabotage attempts in the Baltic Sea are not isolated incidents” but “part of a pattern of deliberate and coordinated actions to damage our digital and energy infrastructure.”

She promised that the EU would “take stronger measures to counter the risks posed” by ships in Russia’s shadow fleet.

Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (832-mile) border with Russia, abandoned its decades-old policy of neutrality and joined NATO in 2023, amid Russia’s war against Ukraine.