Finland-Estonia power cable hit in latest Baltic Sea incident

An undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia broke down on Wednesday, Finland’s prime minister said, the latest in a series of incidents involving cables and energy pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

The Finnish electricity grid’s head of operations, Arto Pahkin, told the public broadcaster Yle that sabotage could not be ruled out.

Suspicions rapidly fell on the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3, which according to tracking sites had sailed over the cables around the time they were cut.

Sweden said on Monday that China had denied a request for prosecutors to conduct an investigation on the vessel and that it had left the area.

European officials have said they suspect several of the incidents involved sabotage linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has dismissed the claim as “absurd” and “laughable”.

The Arelion cable running from the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania was damaged early on 17 November, and the C-Lion 1 cable connecting Helsinki and the German port of Rostock was cut south of Sweden’s Oland island the next day.

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