NATO to enhance military presence in Baltic Sea after undersea power and internet cables cut

NATO has said it will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea after undersea power and internet cables were cut between Estonia and Finland.

The bloc’s secretary general Mark Rutte said he had spoken to Finland’s President Alexander Stubb about the “possible sabotage”, adding: “NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea”.

An undersea power cable and four internet cables were cut or damaged this week.

On Thursday, Finland seized a ship, Eagle S, carrying Russian oil on suspicion of causing an outage of the Estlink 2 undersea power cable and of disrupting fibreoptic lines.

Meanwhile, Estonia has launched a naval operation to protect another electricity link, Estlink 1.

The country’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said: “If there is a threat to the critical undersea infrastructure in our region, there will also be a response”.

He added that such incidents had become so frequent it was hard to believe they were all caused by accidents.

The 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 outage began at midday on Wednesday, leaving just the 358MW Estlink 1 connecting Finland and Estonia, grid operators said.

Fingrid said that Estlink 2 might not be operational again for “several months”.

There have been a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Kremlin said Finland’s seizure of the ship was of little concern to it and it has denied involvement in similar incidents in the past.

‘Grave sabotage’

Police in Finland are investigating what they have called “grave sabotage” to the undersea power and internet cables.

The Eagle S oil tanker is alleged to belong to a so-called shadow fleet of ageing tankers that seek to evade sanctions against Russia.

Coastguard crew boarded the ship, registered in the Cook Islands, and sailed it to Finnish waters.

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The Eagle S oil tanker crossed the Estlink 2 electricity cable at 10.26am on Wednesday, a Reuters review of MarineTraffic ship tracking data showed.

This was the same time when Fingrid said the power outage occurred.

The Eagle S’s anchor is suspected of causing the damage, Finland’s Yle state broadcaster reported, citing police statements.

Both the Finnish and Estonian governments held emergency meetings on Thursday to assess the situation, they said in separate statements.

Finland shares an 832-mile (1,340km) border with Russia and joined NATO in 2023, abandoning a decades-old policy of neutrality.