On December 25, 2024, Finnish authorities boarded the oil tanker Eagle S in the Gulf of Finland, following suspicions of its involvement in the damage of the Estlink 2 subsea electricity cable.

The cable is a crucial component for the electricity transmission between Finland and Estonia, and its disruption raised concerns about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure in the Baltic region.

The Eagle S, which is flagged in the Cook Islands, is believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a group of vessels often used to bypass international sanctions. The authorities’ actions followed a detailed investigation, with the vessel being detained for further questioning.

Finnish officials have described the incident as “grave sabotage,” underlining the seriousness of the breach.

The damage to the Estlink 2 cable has sparked a wider security debate, with multiple incidents of undersea infrastructure damage occurring in the region, including the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines and other undersea cables. Finnish authorities have since ramped up their surveillance and security measures to protect critical infrastructure.

In the wake of the incident, the European Commission has condemned the deliberate damage to infrastructure and is exploring additional sanctions targeting Russia’s shadow fleet. The repair of the Estlink 2 cable is expected to take several months, potentially affecting Finland’s power supply during the winter months.

The photos of Finnish authorities boarding the Eagle S highlight the ongoing concerns over the security of undersea cables in the Baltic and the region’s broader strategic stability.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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33 COMMENTS

  1. Time to block access to the Baltic for Russian ships, they are virtually declaring war on NATO with this incident. Time to over react, let’s see where Putin thinks he can take it.

        • The Estlink cables are in the Gulf of bothnia channel between Finland and Estonia so within their mutual 12 mile territorial waters not international waters.

          RF know that but don’t care about the international rule of law, unless it suits them.

          As they Found Out in the Winter War, you F About with the Finns at your peril..

    • I’m sure behind the scenes there is counter actions going on. Making them public would likely be admitting we have declared war on Russia. E.g. cyber attacks are considered an act of war under international treaty and why no one every outright blames another country for them and instead talks about things indicating it was x country which is walking the tight rope.

    • Agree, the gloves need to come off, Russia does not respect the rule of law, so let’s see if they respect NATO defending itself and boarding and arresting their crews, impounding their ships or better yet, just sink them for state sponsored terrorism.
      If these actions aren’t article 5 triggering I don’t know what is. Russia likes to sail close to the wind with it’s hybrid warfare, so let’s now counter with an over reaction and see what they do. They’ll back down and back off..,.for a while.

  3. This is the big problem the west has, it’s forgotten that open “kinetic” war is that very last step in warfare and that you can be at war and defeat an enemy without firing a shot…which is interesting because we won the largest conflict in modern times in this way ( the Cold War).

    Essentially we have become so enamoured of our abilities around the “ first day of the war” and short war concepts of amassing overwhelming power at a key point and for a short time and then od kicking the shit out of our enemies, that we have forgotten that’s almost inevitably not how peers fight wars and certainly not how Russia and more importantly china fight wars…china will happily take a couple of decades, destroying your populations will for the fight, before dragging you into years of slow burn conflict…and big secure nations at distance cannot be overcome by lighting warfare..even weak nations whos military fold in no time will keep fighting for years in a low intensity way that sucks the life out of your will…it’s why the US does losing wars against tiny enemies, you only win when you have destroyed the will of the oppositions population to fight..

    • The fact is, we’re already at war. The question is whether the government knows this or not, or is simply feigning ignorance while preparing behind the scenes…
      While Chamberlain practiced appeasement to try and avoid war, or to at least reduce the number of enemies, he also began rearming. Between 1933 to 1939, when he was Chancellor and then PM, the RAF budget alone went from £17m to £106m. I’d hope HMG would be doing similar, but it appears not.

      • And it was to a great degree done as secretly as possible esp RAF regeneration to avoid the peaceniks forming real opposition to it. This Labour Govt is terrified of looking like ‘warmongers’ so it’s difficult to know how serious it is behind the scenes. It does seem to be allowing or encouraging gradual release of the great dangers developing ahead in the World. But the true risks are barely touched on in the consciousness of the public.

  4. About time, sooo many “tankers” going about in The Baltic (and other places) cutting cables and doing other sneaky things.

    Well done Finland.!

    Wish the rest of The World would take note and respond, far to scared to do so!

  5. What I find curious is that all the wessels suspected of deliberately causing damage to CUI in the Baltic have been on their way from Russian ports and not to them. It’s as if the Russians want to give NATO the opportunity to detain them, to see how far they can push before NATO pushes back.

    • Interesting point, I wonder how long it will be before Russia takes actions to help prevent these ships being detained. We need to be clear what we are going to do together in such a circumstance, we really don’t want another humiliating predictable replay of the Iranian tanker in Gib.

      • It’s normal maritime practice for vessels attempting to navigate difficult waterways to take on a Pilot who is responsible for safe navigation for example Suez Canal, Panama Canal and many ports.
        Since CCP and RF vessels have proven themselves unable to safely navigate it should be mandatory for them to take on a Pilot within the Baltic Sea.
        That keeps military intervention to a minimum while ensuring safe navigation or at least an expert witness on scene. Coastguard staff of adjacent nations can cover this..

    • It’s been interesting to see from whom and where the instructions to carry out such sabotaging operations are actually coming from? What a bunch of silly buggers.

    • Yes, Good on the Finns. Hopefully they’ll get to the bottom of this and somebody will be held accountable, maybe some ambassador might need a dressing down and the silly buggers get flung in jail for a bit and maybe get to pay for the repair bill. Hope the UK is stepping up its below sea surveillance of cables and infrastructure within its areas too. Could a small SSK/LUUV type fleet help with this? Isn’t this a role for the T32 – light coastal frigate?

  8. Eagle S flies the flag of Cook Islands, a dependency of New Zealand. According to Finnish media reports, several Russian linked tankers are registered there. Why exactly does New Zealand, a western country in political terms, tolerate such activity?

    • Flags of Convenience mean low regulation and low cost since neither inspection nor intervention (protection) are expected. No disrespect to New Zealand Navy but they don’t operate in the Baltic Sea. The Cook Islands probably have minimal industry so ship registration is just a source of income for them. Not too reputable but they don’t care.

      Fortunately Finland has long experience of dealing with RF behaviour. I’m confident that no nonsense will be allowed.

      Hyvää Suomi 🇫🇮 #StrongerTogether #WeAreNATO

  9. Finns/Balts know the scum the best and they know the scum only appreciate force.

    Close permitted airspace, close slocs, starve Kaliningrad, and make the scum suffer.

    ‘Grey’ oil tankers transportating illicit oil? Seize them on the high seas under sanction busting regs, imprison the officers.

    We have to be tougher on the scum.

  11. I guess all Russian vessels will need to escorted passed areas where cables are located. At least the Baltic is now a NATO lake. Even if Russians try to protect their cable destroying vessels with their own ships it would be a dumb Russian Captain indeed who’d start a hot war when the only outcome is his ship on fire and sinking.

  12. IF undeniable proof of this ship and crew involvement, then the ship and cargo should be kept and sold to help towards the cable repair costs.

  13. So, just a suspicion, without any proof and everyone in the comments already assumed that ship actually has something to do with damaging the cables.
    Maybe the authorities did have some strong reasons to suspect that ship or maybe they didn’t and instead just unlawfully entered and held it like pirates. It’s a thin edge and the article says nothing about the grounds for this suspicion.

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