OSLO (Reuters) – Finnish police said on Sunday they had found tracks stretching dozens of kilometers along the bottom of the Baltic Sea where a tanker carrying Russian oil was suspected of smashing a power line and four communications cables with its anchor.
Finnish police and coast guard officials boarded the Cook Islands-registered vessel Eagle S on Thursday and sailed into Finnish waters where the crew of the detained tanker are being questioned.
Baltic Sea countries are on high alert after a series of outages in electricity, telecommunications cables and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. NATO said on Friday it would strengthen its presence in the region.
The outage of the 658 MW Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia occurred at midday on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 linking the two countries, grid operators said. They said Estlink 2 may not return to service before August.
Finnish police suspect the Eagle S caused the damage by dragging its anchor along the seabed.
Investigators have identified a “tow path” but have not yet found the missing anchor, Sami Paila, tactical commander and chief detective inspector for Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement.
“The path is tens of kilometers long,” Bayla said.
Photos taken of the Eagle S on Friday showed that the ship had lost its port side anchor.
The Finnish Customs Service believes the ship is part of a “shadow fleet” of old tankers used to evade sanctions on Russian oil exports.
The Kremlin said on Friday that Finland's detention of the ship was of little significance.
Russia has denied involvement in any of the previous incidents of infrastructure destruction in the Baltic region.
