A ship suspected of damaging an underwater cable running between Helsinki and Tallinn has been seized by police.
Finnish officials say the vessel is suspected of being “responsible for the damage to the cable” owned by the telecoms group Elisa and located in Estonia’s exclusive economic zone.
No details about the identity of the vessel were disclosed.
The cable was damaged in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Baltic Sea bordered by Estonia, Finland and Russia.
Elisa, which is based in Helsinki, detected a fault in its cable early on Wednesday and reported it to Finnish authorities, police said.
They said a border guard patrol vessel and helicopter located the suspect vessel with its anchor lowered into the sea. They ordered it to move and anchor in Finnish territorial waters.
Finnish police said they were treating the incident as “aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with telecommunications”.
Officers have contacted national and international authorities, including those in Estonia.
Energy and communications infrastructure, including underwater cables and pipelines, have been damaged repeatedly in the Baltic.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many experts and political leaders have viewed the suspected cable sabotage as part of a “hybrid war” carried out by Moscow against western countries.
“Finland is prepared for security challenges of various kinds, and we respond to them as necessary,” said Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president, in a statement on X on Wednesday.