Finnish police have launched an investigation into the potential role of a foreign vessel in damaging the Estlink 2 underwater cable, which connects Finland and Estonia, following a sudden outage on December 25.
According to the police, the investigation is being conducted in collaboration with the Border Guard and other authorities. The name of the vessel suspected to be involved has not yet been disclosed.
The incident occurred amid heightened alert in the Baltic region due to an increase in sabotage-related incidents since 2022, including damage to cables, pipelines, and communication lines.
The Estlink 2 cable, with a capacity of 658 MW, remains offline. Currently, only the Estlink 1 cable, with a capacity of 358 MW, is operational between Finland and Estonia.
Data from the Vesselfinder service indicates that the Hong Kong-flagged vessel Xin Xin Tian 2 was in the vicinity of the cable at the time of the outage. The same vessel was previously implicated in an investigation into gas pipeline damage between Finland and Estonia in the autumn of 2023.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo assured the public that, despite the incident, there would be no issues with energy supply. While the cause of the cable damage is yet to be determined, sabotage remains a possible explanation.
