Tom Porter
Updated Mon, December 30, 2024
Finland accused a Russian ship of dragging its anchor to sever undersea cables in the Baltic.
Officials said the vessel, Eagle S, is part of a "shadow fleet" transporting sanctioned oil.
The EU believes Russia is responsible for incidents that have disrupted power and internet service.
Western nations have long suspected that Russia has been deliberately severing vital underseas cables — but without much to prove it.
That may have changed after officials in Finland pointed to an unusually vivid piece of evidence tied to a Russia-linked ship.
Finnish officials on Sunday said they found miles and miles of tracks on the bed of the Baltic Sea that indicate a Russia-linked tanker could be responsible for slicing a cluster of valuable data and power cables.
Sami Paila, the detective chief inspector of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, said "dragging marks" from an aging tanker's anchor had been found beneath the Baltic Sea near the cables, Reuters reported.
"The track is dozens of kilometers in length," Paila said.
Germany's foreign minister on Friday cited the incident as a "wake-up call," saying it would be naive to consider it an accident.
The minister, Annalena Baerbock, pushed for further European sanctions on the so-called "shadow fleet" of ships tied to Russia.
Finnish officials boarded the Eagle S after the Estlink 2 subsea cable carrying electricity and four other cables carrying data were damaged on Wednesday.
Estlink 2 is one of two cables carrying electricity between Finland and Estonia. Officials have said it might not be functional again until August, Reuters reported.
The Finnish telecommunications firm Cinia said the damage caused disruptions in internet communications between Rostock, Germany, and Helsinki and could take weeks to repair.
This is the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Baltic region.
The Eagle S, registered in the Cook Islands, was carrying about 35,000 tons of unleaded gasoline loaded in Russian ports. It was traveling to Egypt when the Finnish coast guard stopped it.
Finnish officials say it's likely part of a "shadow fleet," a network of vessels registered through complex ownership deals that carry fuel in an effort to circumvent international sanctions on Russia's oil trade.
This is the first time a part of the fleet has been accused of involvement in subsea cable sabotage.
"The suspected vessel is part of Russia's shadow fleet, which threatens security and the environment, while funding Russia's war budget," Kaja Kallas, the chief foreign affairs official for the EU, said.
"We will propose further measures, including sanctions, to target this fleet," Kallas posted on X.
Russia has long denied any role in damaging subsea cables in the Baltic. The Russian embassy in the UK did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Internet cables between Germany and Finland and Sweden and Estonia were damaged in November. A Chinese vessel was detected in the vicinity when the damage occurred.
Estonia on Friday said it would be stepping up efforts to defend the undamaged Estlink 1 cable.
"We've decided to send our navy close to Estlink 1 to defend and secure our energy connection with Finland," Hanno Pevkur, Estonia's defense minister, said.
Miles-long anchor drag mark found on Baltic seabed after suspicious cable damage, Finnish investigators say
Associated Press
Mon, December 30, 2024
The oil tanker Eagle S, alongside the Finnish coast guard ship Uisko and tugboat Ukko, in the Gulf of Finland on December 28, 2024. The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands but was described by Finnish customs officials as part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers.
Finnish investigators probing the damage to a Baltic Sea power cable and several data cables said they found an anchor drag mark on the seabed, apparently from a Russia-linked vessel that has already been seized.
The discovery heightened concerns about suspected sabotage by Russia’s “shadow fleet” of fuel tankers – aging vessels with obscure ownership acquired to evade Western sanctions amid the war in Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance.
The Estlink-2 power cable, which transmits energy from Finland to Estonia across the Baltic Sea, went down on Dec. 25 after a rupture. It had little impact on services but followed damage to two data cables and the Nord Stream gas pipelines, both of which have been termed sabotage.
Finnish police chief investigator Sami Paila said late Sunday the anchor drag trail continued for “dozens of kilometers (miles) … if not almost 100 kilometers (62 miles).”
Paila added to Finnish national TV broadcaster Yle: “Our current understanding is that the drag mark in question is that of the anchor of the (seized) Eagle S vessel. We have been able to clarify this matter through underwater research.”
Without giving further details, Paila said authorities have “a preliminary understanding of what happened at sea, how the anchor mark was created there,” and stressed that the “question of intent is a completely essential issue to be clarified in the preliminary investigation.”
On Saturday, the seized vessel was escorted to anchorage in the vicinity of the port of Porvoo to facilitate the investigation, officials said. It is being probed under criminal charges of aggravated interference with telecommunications, aggravated vandalism and aggravated regulatory offense.
The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands but was described by Finnish customs officials and the European Union executive commission as part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers. Russia’s use of the vessels has raised environmental concerns about accidents given their age and uncertain insurance coverage.
In the wake of the cable rupture, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last week that the military alliance, which Finland joined last year, will step up patrols in the Baltic Sea region.
The Finnish Coast Guard said Monday that another tanker ship headed for a Russian port has engine failure and drifted, then anchored in the Gulf of Finland south of the Hanko Paninsula. The guard said it was notified Sunday night.
Registered in Panama, the M/T Jazz was en route to Primorsk, Russia, from Sudan, with apparently no oil cargo. Finnish authorities have dispatched a tugboat and a patrol ship to ensure that the vessel does not drift and to prevent any damage to the environment.
Regional director of the Coast Guard Janne Ryönänkoski said there was no immediate risk to the seabed infrastructure.
Earlier Monday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that “sabotage in Europe has increased” since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kallas told the German newspaper Welt that the recent “sabotage attempts in the Baltic Sea are not isolated incidents” but “part of a pattern of deliberate and coordinated actions to damage our digital and energy infrastructure.”
She vowed that the EU would “take stronger measures to counter the risks posed” by vessels of Russia’s shadow fleet.
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (832-mile) border with Russia, abandoned its decades-long policy of neutrality and joined NATO in 2023, amid Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Germany calls for new sanctions on Russia's dark fleet that is 'damaging major undersea cables' nearly every month
Huileng Tan
Mon, December 30, 2024
Business Insider
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said ships are damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea nearly every month.Florian Gaertner/Photothek/Getty Images
Germany's foreign minister urged new European Union sanctions on Russia's dark fleet.
As part of a probe into a cut cable, Finland said last week it detained a ship that may be from the dark fleet.
The case is being investigated as "aggravated criminal mischief," Finnish police said.
Germany's foreign minister has called for further sanctions against Russia's dark fleet of oil tankers following damage to an underwater cable linking Finland and Estonia last week.
"Ships are damaging major undersea cables in the Baltic Sea almost every month," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Funke media group.
"Crews are leaving anchors in the water, dragging them for kilometers along the seafloor for no apparent reason, and then losing them when pulling them up," Baerbock said, per an AFP translation.
"It's more than difficult to still believe in coincidences. This is an urgent wake-up call for all of us," she added.
Baerbock urged new European Union sanctions against Russia's dark — or shadow — fleet of oil tankers that transport sanctioned Russian oil and energy products.
The EU has also sanctioned 79 vessels from Russia's shadow fleet. These ships are banned from accessing EU ports and services.
Many of these vessels are aging, operating under opaque ownership, and sailing without adequate insurance coverage. They pose environmental and financial risks to coastal countries. A heavy storm earlier this month caused two tankers to spill thousands of tons of low-grade fuel oil into the Kerch Strait, between the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula and Russia.
Baerbock's comments came after Finnish authorities detained the Eagle S oil tanker on Thursday as part of an investigation into the cutting of an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea. The cable transmits electricity from Finland to Estonia.
The case is being investigated as "aggravated criminal mischief," Finnish police said in a press release.
Finnish customs authorities and the European Union's executive commission said the tanker might be part of Russia's dark fleet of tankers.
The Kremlin declined to comment on Finland's seizure of the oil tanker on Friday.
"I cannot say anything for sure, for this is a highly specialized issue that the presidential administration is hardly in a position to comment on," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question on the Finnish move.
On Friday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on X that he had spoken to the Finnish president about the investigation into the "possible sabotage of undersea cables."
"#NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea," Rutte added.
NATO plans to build satellite links as backups to undersea cables
Jowi Morales
Mon, December 30, 2024
Credit: Shutterstock
Because of the increasing number of undersea cable disruptions happening in the past couple of years, NATO is building on a system that will locate damage to undersea cables with an accuracy of one meter and find more routes that data can take if a disruption does occur in a particular line. This project will be called HEIST, says the IEEE in a report, which stands for Hybrid Space-Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications.
The value of transactions transmitted through undersea cables exceeds $10 trillion in total, with Henric Johnson, the vice-chancellor of Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) and HEIST testbed coordinator, saying, “What we’re talking about now is critical infrastructure in the society.” BTH, located in Karlskrona, near the southern coast of Sweden, is one of the partners in the HEIST program. Engineers will work there to develop smart systems that allow cable breaks to be quickly located and develop protocols to quickly and automatically reroute the affected data to satellites.
“We have had incidents of cables that have been sabotaged between Sweden, Estonia, and Finland,” added Johnson. “So those incidents are, for us, a reality.”
Although it may seem that undersea cables are tough infrastructure because of the environment they’re in, these intercontinental connections are very fragile. That’s because these cables, about the thickness of a garden hose, lie on the seafloor instead of being buried underneath. Anything dragging on the ocean floor—a sea creature, a loose anchor, or a submarine—could easily damage or even sever these communications cables.
This shows how fragile our internet-driven world is, especially given that over 95% of global data traffic is carried through these undersea fiber optics. About a hundred cable cuts happen each year, with about 600 undersea cables globally, meaning that about 16% of global connections are down yearly. Although there are specially designed ships stationed worldwide to repair faults as soon as they happen, these often take days or weeks and could cost millions of dollars.
Satellites are the primary backups to undersea cables, but their bandwidth is far behind physical connections. For example, Google’s latest fiber-optic lines can hit 340 terabits per second. In contrast, the frequency used by most satellites—12 to 18GHz—can only handle about 5 gigabits per second or about 0.0015% of the maximum throughput of Google’s fiber connection.
Work is underway to upgrade satellites from radio transmissions to lasers, increasing the speed by about 40 times to 200 Gbps. Starlink already uses this technology to communicate between its satellites, while Amazon is also developing it for its own Project Kuiper. However, it still faces challenges, like poor visibility and targeting precision between the satellite and ground station.
Because this is a major NATO project, the alliance plans to open-source part of the process. Making it public would allow anyone interested to find holes and make many iterations. Gregory Falco, the NATO Country Director for HEIST, believes that this is the fastest way for the project to achieve its goals and help prevent any catastrophic loss of data transmission in case of deliberate attacks against these underwater infrastructures in international waters.
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