![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0021bafb-614.jpg\"\/)
\nInvestigators said Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S had damaged a power cable and several telecoms links in the Baltic Sea last year<\/p>\n
Finnish authorities boarded and \u2060seized a cargo vessel called Fitburg, \u200dafter it was suspected of having damaged underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, Finnish police told a press conference.<\/p>\n
The vessel sailed \u2060under the flag of \u2060St Vincent and Grenadines, a police spokesperson \u2060said. \u200d<\/p>\n
The \u2060vessel had departed from St Petersburg \u200din Russia \u2060and was headed to Haifa in Israel, according to Marine Traffic data.<\/p>\n
Fourteen crew members are being held by Finnish police, and come from Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n
“Finnish authorities have taken control of the vessel \u200das part of a joint operation,” police said, adding they were investigating the case as aggravated criminal damage.<\/p>\n
Eight NATO states border the Baltic Sea, which also borders Russia.<\/p>\n
They have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecoms links and gas pipelines that run along the relatively shallow seabed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
\nInvestigators said Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S had damaged a power cable and several telecoms links in the Baltic Sea last year<\/p>\n
NATO has boosted its presence in the Baltic Sea with frigates, aircraft and naval drones in recent years. A spokesperson for the military alliance declined to comment on the incident.<\/p>\n
The vessel suspected of causing the latest damage was dragging its anchor in the sea, and was directed to Finnish territorial waters, the police \u2060and Finland’s Border Guard said.<\/p>\n
The cable belongs to Finnish telecoms group Elisa.<\/p>\n
“At this stage, the police are investigating the incident as aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, \u2060and aggravated interference with telecommunications,” police said.<\/p>\n
‘Hopefully not deliberate,’ says Estonian President<\/p>\n
Estonia’s justice ministry said a second telecoms cable connecting the country to Finland had also suffered an outage today.<\/p>\n
It \u200dwas not immediately \u2060clear if the cable, belonging to Sweden’s Arelion, was running parallel to Elisa’s.<\/p>\n
“I’m concerned about the reported damage … Hopefully \u200dit was not a deliberate act, but the investigation will clarify,” Estonia’s President Alar Karis said on \u2060X.<\/p>\n
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said on X that he was monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n
“Finland is prepared for security challenges of various kinds, and we respond to them as necessary.”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/001b667c-614.jpg\"\/)
\nFinnish President Alexander Stubb has said that he is monitoring the situation<\/p>\n
Finland in December 2024 boarded the Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S which investigators said had damaged a power cable and several telecoms links in the Baltic Sea by dragging its anchor.<\/p>\n
A Finnish court in October dismissed a criminal \u200dcase against the Eagle S captain and other crew members, ruling prosecutors failed to prove intent and that any alleged negligence must be pursued by the ship’s flag state or the crew’s home \u2060countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finnish authorities boarded and \u2060seized a cargo vessel called Fitburg, \u200dafter it was suspected of having damaged underwater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-220206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}