Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on January 3, 2025
By Anne Kauranen and Nerijus Adomaitis
HELSINKI (Reuters) - The Baltic Sea region is on high alert after a string of power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the NATO military alliance recently boosted its presence with frigates, aircraft and naval drones.
Several police investigations are under way but no suspects have been brought to trial.
JANUARY 2025: SWEDEN-LATVIA TELECOM CABLE
An undersea fibre optic cable connecting the west coast of Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland malfunctioned in the early morning hours of Jan. 26.
Latvia's Prime Minister Evika Silina and the cable's operator, the Latvian State Radio and Television Corporation (LVRTC), said the damage was likely caused by an "external impact".
The cable breach occurred in the Swedish economic zone of the Baltic Sea, some 130 km (80 miles) from the Latvian port of Ventspils, according to LVRTC.
The outage triggered an investigation by NATO and local maritime forces, and Sweden later seized and boarded the Maltese-flagged bulk vessel Vezhen on suspicion that it had caused the damage in an act of gross sabotage.
Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which lists the Vezhen among its fleet, said on Monday that one of the vessel's anchors had dropped to the seabed in high winds and may have struck the cable, but denied any sabotage.
DECEMBER 2024: POWER AND INTERNET CABLES
The Estlink 2 undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia was damaged on Dec. 25 along with four telecoms lines.
Finland launched a sabotage investigation and on Dec. 26 seized a tanker carrying Russian oil on suspicion it caused the damage by dragging its anchor.
Finnish authorities said the Cook Islands-registered Eagle S was part of a "shadow fleet" used to circumvent sanctions on Russian oil exports.
The Kremlin said the ship's seizure was of little concern to it, and Russia has previously denied involvement in such incidents.
Finnish police said on Dec. 29 they had found tracks on the seabed where they suspect the Eagle S of damaging the cables, and investigators later recovered a lost anchor they said was believed to belong to the ship.
The owner of the Eagle S, United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLC FZ, on Dec. 30 filed a request with the Helsinki District Court seeking the release of the ship. This was rejected on Jan. 3, 2025.
NOVEMBER 2024: BALTIC TELECOM CABLES
Two undersea fibre-optic communications cables located more than 100 nautical miles (about 200 km) apart in the Baltic Sea were severed on Nov. 17 and 18, raising suspicions of sabotage.
Investigators have zeroed in on Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, which left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15, and a Reuters analysis of MarineTraffic data showed that the ship's coordinates corresponded to the time and place of the breaches.
China allowed representatives from Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark on Dec. 21 to board the Yi Peng 3 along with Chinese investigators, after a month-long diplomatic standoff during which the ship sat still in a Danish shipping lane.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said on Dec. 23 China had not heeded the Swedish government's request for a prosecutor to be able to conduct the preliminary investigation on board.
OCTOBER 2023: BALTICCONNECTOR GAS PIPE AND CABLES
A subsea gas pipeline, the Balticconnector, which links Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea, was severed by what Finnish investigators determined was Chinese container vessel NewNew Polar Bear dragging its anchor in the early on Oct. 8, 2023.
Estonian police suspect the ship of also damaging telecoms cables connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden on Oct. 7-8, before hitting the gas pipeline on its way to a port near St Petersburg in Russia.
China promised Finland and Estonia assistance with the investigations but Estonian authorities have said the Chinese did little to fulfil its promises.
Finnish and Estonian investigators have been unable to determine whether the Hong Kong-flagged vessel caused the damage by accident or deliberately, and have not yet provided their conclusions in the cases.
SEPTEMBER 2022: NORD STREAM BLASTS
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, built across the Baltic Sea by Russia's state-controlled Gazprom to pump natural gas to Germany, were damaged on Sept. 26, 2022.
Swedish seismologists registered several subsea blasts, some 17 hours apart, off the Danish island of Bornholm, that ruptured three out of four pipelines in the Nord Stream system, releasing methane into the atmosphere.
In the investigations, Sweden found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the site, confirming it was a deliberate act, but Sweden and Denmark closed their investigations without naming suspects in 2024.
No one has taken responsibility.
Some Western officials have suggested Moscow blew up its own pipelines, an interpretation dismissed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has blamed the United States, Britain and Ukraine for the blasts, which largely cut Russian gas off from the European market. Those countries denied involvement.
In August 2024, Germany asked Poland to arrest a Ukrainian diving instructor accused of being part of a team that blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. Poland said the man left the country before he could be detained.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki, Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo, Johan Ahlander in Gothenburg, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm and Agnieszka Olenska in Gdansk; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Timothy Heritage and Alex Richardson)
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