Many experts and political leaders have viewed the recent incidents as part of a “hybrid war” carried out by Russia against Western countries. The issue has come under increased focus since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
Police said they were investigating “aggravated disruption of telecommunications” and “aggravated sabotage and attempted aggravated sabotage”.<\/p>\n
The detained crew members were Russian, Georgian, Kazakh and Azerbaijani, police added.<\/p>\n
Undersea cables carry crucial electricity and data between countries, and keep people connected to the internet.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning, the Finnish authorities sent a helicopter and a patrol ship to the area, where they found the vessel was dragging its anchor in the sea, Finland’s coastguard said.<\/p>\n
They said they had “launched operations this morning to investigate the suspected cable damage” after telecoms provider Elisa detected a fault.<\/p>\n
Finnish police said the authorities had “taken control of the vessel as part of a joint operation”.<\/p>\n
“At this stage, the police are investigating the incident as aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications,” the police added.<\/p>\n
“Finland is prepared for security challenges of various kinds, and we respond to them as necessary,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a statement on social media. <\/p>\n
At a press conference, police were asked by journalists if the cable was damaged on behalf of another country, local media reported.<\/p>\n
Police Chief Ilkka Koskim\u00e4ki replied that <\/b>“the police or other authorities do not speculate on these matters. The police’s job is to investigate what happened.”<\/p>\n
Eight Nato countries border the Baltic Sea – Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden – which also borders Russia.<\/p>\n
Estonia’s government said a second telecoms cable connecting it to Finland also suffered an outage on Wednesday. The country’s President Alar Karis said “hopefully it was not a deliberate act, but the investigation will clarify”.<\/p>\n
The European Commission was closely monitoring the incident, EU technology commissioner Henna Virkkunen posted on X, adding that it was prepared to counter “hybrid threats”.<\/p>\n
“We’re already talking about national security. Critical infrastructure is the front line,” the Finnish MP Jarno Limnell commented on the incident, in a post on X.<\/p>\n
Nato has identified deep-sea cables as part of the world’s critical infrastructure and previously warned that adversaries could exploit them through sabotage or hybrid warfare, threatening both civilian and military communications.<\/p>\n
“Hybrid warfare” includes underwater sabotage, anonymous cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, and non-military tactics to destabilise adversaries.<\/p>\n
In December 2024, Finnish police said they were investigating whether a Russian ship was involved in the sabotage of an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia.<\/p>\n