NATO ready to help Finland after cable ‘sabotage’

1 comment

1. There have been a lot of developments today in this incident. To sum up.

   The tanker which set sail from the Russian port of St. Petersburg to Egypt is [suspected of committing multiple hostile acts against](https://news.err.ee/1609560763/finnish-police-ship-at-the-site-of-estlink-2-s-breakage-missing-anchor) major Finnish and Estonian pieces of infrastructure ([Estlink2 power cable](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1hmq54g/finnish_authorities_have_detained_a_russialinked/), [four telecommunications cables](https://old.reddit.com/r/anime_titties/comments/1hmtmzp/four_telecommunication_cables_connecting_finland/) have been boarded and detained in Finnish territorial waters by the country’s forces. [A three-kilometer no-fly zone has been imposed in the area.
   ](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1hmni94/finnish_authorities_suspect_eagle_s_tanker/m3v88o9/)

   The Cook Island [convenience flagged](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience) ‘Eagle S’ is owned by an UAE corporate entity and it is held to part of the Russian Baltic [shadow fleet](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr56l7prj2mo) of similarly commercially disguised ships. It [slowed down](https://yle.fi/a/74-20133516) over the zone of the Estlink incident at the time it was disrupted. [It is missing its anchor](https://news.err.ee/1609560733/estlink-2-suspected-fault-location-on-the-bottom-of-the-gulf-of-finland).

   As of CET 23:37 Russian govt has not come forward with any explanation or accusation or indeed any information as far as I can tell.

   The Finnish authorities [indicated](https://www-dn-se.translate.goog/varlden/fler-kablar-skadade-polisen-utreder-fartyg/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=hu&_x_tr_pto=wapp) that the crew is communicating satisfactorily so far with the investigators. Besides the attack on critical infrastructure, the ship is also being [investigated for a breach of sanctions](https://news.err.ee/1609560733/estlink-2-suspected-fault-location-on-the-bottom-of-the-gulf-of-finland) against Russia which has the penalty (among others) of the confiscation of the ship and some might argue (and very well will IMO) a precedent for boarding other shadow fleet ships.

   NATO secretary general Rutte has put out an official statement offering help to Finland and Estonia late on the Christmas holiday of Boxing Day (see in posted article in full).

   [The Finnish police has not reached out to Russian authorities. They do not intend to.](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1hmsrcg/finnish_police_have_you_been_in_touch_with_russia/)

Comments are closed.