Nato to boost Baltic Sea presence after suspected sabotage of underwater cable
Nato is to increase its military presence in the Baltic Sea, the alliance has announced, after the suspected sabotage of an underwater power cable running between Finland and Estonia.
The Estlink 2 submarine cable was disconnected from the grid on Christmas Day, little more than a month after two telecommunications cables were severed in Swedish territorial waters in the Baltic Sea.
Finnish authorities seized a ship on Thursday, citing suspicions that the vessel had engaged in “sabotage” to cause the Estlink 2 outage. The Eagle S, which flies under the flag of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, was en route to Port Said in Egypt.
On Friday, Finnish police said they had interrogated crew members of the Eagle S, and suspected the vessel of partaking in “aggravated criminal mischief”. Investigators believe the ship could have deliberately caused the damage by dragging its anchor along the seabed. “Had it kept going with its anchor on the seabed, more damage would have occurred,” Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said on Friday.
Sami Rakshit, the head of Finnish customs, has said the assumption is that the Eagle S was part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – vessels flagged to third countries that are used to transport Russian crude and other oil products that have been under embargo since the invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/27/estonia-begins-naval-patrols-to-protect-cable-after-suspected-sabotage-finlandI find the above article absolutely fucking hilarious. Those cheeky-breeki Russians trolling with their “aggravated criminal mischief”.
Alexander Stubb, the next Nato president, if he had his way. Well w/e, lets build up in the Nordic states, Alex will help us.