Another Baltic Sea cable mysteriously breaks

RT
Wed, 25 Dec 2024 23:47 UTC

© Getty Images / Karol Serewis/SOPA Images/LightRocket

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An undersea power line delivering electricity from Finland to Estonia has suffered an outage

The Finnish authorities are investigating an outage of the undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has said.

The operator of Estlink 2, which delivers electricity to Estonia via the Baltic Sea, recorded the failure on Wednesday, according to the power exchange Nord Pool.

"The authorities are on standby over Christmas and are investigating the matter," Orpo wrote on X, adding that the power supply in Finland has not been affected.

The cable's operator, Fingrid, will start inspecting the damage on Thursday morning, the company's network operations manager, Arto Pahkin, said.

"We are investigating several possible causes, from sabotage to technical failure, and nothing has been ruled out yet," Pahkin told Helsingin Sanomat on Wednesday. "At least two vessels were sailing near the cable at the time of disruption."

Estonian transmission system operator Elering said the country's electricity supply will continue. "The exact reserve capacities that will be activated depends on the market situation, but these reserve capacities exist in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania," Elering board member Reigo Kebja told public broadcaster ERR.

Last month, two undersea telecommunications cables were disrupted - C-Lion1, which connects Germany and Finland, and BCS East-West Interlink, which connects Sweden and Lithuania. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the time that Berlin had to "assume, without certain information, that the damage was caused by sabotage."

The cables run close to the Nord Stream pipelines damaged by sabotage in September 2022. While no one claimed responsibility for the attack, Western media outlets have reported that people linked to Ukraine were behind the operation.

Moscow claimed in October 2024 that it has evidence the US and UK were responsible for the Nord Stream sabotage. London and Washington, as well as Kiev, have denied any involvement.

Comment: See also:
1)
From the same source:
26 Dec, 2024 15:54
NATO state probes Russian tanker over mysterious cable incident - media

The Eagle S was reportedly stopped after an electricity cable linking Finland and Estonia was cut

Authorities in Finland are investigating whether a Russian oil tanker had anything to do with the severing of an undersea electricity cable this week, the Financial Times has reported. The incident was the latest in a series of cable breaks in the region.

Finnish officials stopped the tanker, the Eagle S, after the Estlink 2 electricity cable in the Gulf of Finland was cut on Wednesday, the British newspaper reported on Thursday. The Estlink 2 delivers power from Finland to Estonia, and has been operational since 2014.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that "the authorities are on standby over Christmas and are investigating the matter," while the cable's operator, Fingrid, said that "we are investigating several possible causes, from sabotage to technical failure, and nothing has been ruled out yet."

The Eagle S is the focus of the government's investigation, the Financial Times reported, citing anonymous "people familiar with the probe." No further details were provided, although the paper's sources said that the vessel was also under investigation over the severing of three data cables in the Gulf of Finland last month.

These fiber optic cables linking Finland with Germany, Lithuania, and Sweden. The incident involving the Finland-Sweden cable was later confirmed to have been caused by construction work, while suspicion over the other two breaches initially fell on a Chinese vessel which passed over the cables around the time of the damage.

The ship, the Yi Peng 3, stopped in international waters and was boarded by Chinese investigators last week, with Swedish, Danish, German and Finnish officials present as observers.

It remains unclear whether the Yi Peng 3 had anything to do with the cable incidents. However, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the time that Berlin had to "assume, without certain information, that the damage was caused by sabotage."

Likewise, although investigators have not yet established whether the Eagle S had anything to do with the most recent cable break, Finnish President Alexander Stubb announced on social media on Thursday that "it is necessary to prevent the risks posed by ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet."

Without evidence for any wrongdoing by the Russian ship, the Finish President jumps from a speculation about what happened to the real goal which is: "it is necessary to prevent the risks posed by ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet."

The Russian shadow fleet, includes ships that transport oil to prospective buyers, thus in the opinion of some western governments circumvent the sanctions effort put by them against Russia.

While that is one understanding of the Russian shadow fleet, no oil was transported by this ship that was sunk by sabotage or a direct attack on December 23: 'Act of terrorism' sank Russian cargo ship - owner [Update] but it carried goods of strategic value.

Without saying it is the NATO block trying to establish a no sail, or restricted sail zones in some waters?

2)
From the same source, there was earlier this month:
3 Dec, 2024 12:33
Key internet cable connecting NATO states cut

A Swedish minister was quick to cry sabotage but at least one of the ruptures has been proven to have been accidentally caused

A fiber-optic cable linking Sweden and Finland has reportedly been damaged in two separate locations. Finnish police said on Tuesday that "there is no reason to suspect any criminal activity" in connection with the incident.

Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin had suggested earlier in the day that the incident could be a deliberate act, citing the circumstances surrounding the damage.

However, Finnish telecom company Elisa later confirmed that at least one of the breaches was caused by construction work.

Reports emerged on Tuesday of the two cuts, both of which occurred on Finnish soil. The severing of the cable, which connects the Nordic countries, disrupted internet services for thousands of households and businesses in southern Finland.

Global Connect, the line operator, reported that approximately 6,000 households and 100 businesses were affected by the disruption. One of the breaches was repaired overnight, while work on the second was still ongoing.

Swedish media, including SVT and Aftonbladet, initially claimed that Finnish police were investigating the damage as a potential criminal act. However, Finnish authorities later clarified that there was no ongoing investigation into the incident.

"Contrary to media reports, the Finnish police have no ongoing criminal investigation into the damage to the fiber optic cable between Finland and Sweden," a spokesperson stated.

Despite this, Bohlin maintained that sabotage could be involved, saying, "due to the circumstances surrounding what happened, sabotage is suspected."

Jaakko Wallenius, safety director at Elisa, confirmed to Helsingin Sanomat that one of the ruptures had been caused by an excavator during construction work. The incident, he said, was reported promptly and was considered a "very ordinary accident."

Niklas Ekstrom, communications manager at Global Connect, also attributed one of the breaks to construction activities, while the cause of the second breach remains under investigation.

This incident is part of a series of similar disruptions over the past year, with some incidents in the region raising suspicions of sabotage. In October, two undersea cables linking Finland, Germany, and Lithuania were damaged in the Baltic Sea, prompting German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to suggest the possibility of deliberate sabotage.

3)
See also:
Undersea data cable between Germany and Finland broken (Now 2024)
Key communications cable to Norwegian Air Force base 'intentionally cut' (Aug 2024)
Finland blames Chinese ship for Baltic Sea gas pipeline & telecoms cable damage, despite weak evidence (Oct 2023)