Finnish police are investigating a potential foreign ship’s involvement in damaging an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia after a sudden outage on Wednesday. Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for sabotage following a series of outages since 2022, although technical malfunctions and accidents can also occur with subsea equipment. The 658 MW Estlink 2 power interconnector remains offline, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 operational between the two countries, according to operator Fingrid.
The police, in collaboration with the Border Guard and other authorities, are investigating the incident’s chain of events. Investigators are looking into the possible role of a foreign ship, although the vessel has not been named. In a separate investigation, Swedish police are leading the probe into the breach of two Baltic Sea telecom cables last month, suspected to be sabotage by German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
Furthermore, Finnish police are continuing to investigate damage caused last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline and several telecom cables linking Finland and Estonia, likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor. In 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, still under investigation by Germany. These incidents highlight the importance of maintaining the security and integrity of critical infrastructure in the region.
