NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea, the alliance’s Secretary General said on Friday, as Estonia launched a naval operation to protect the Estlink 1 undersea power cable connecting the country to Finland.
The moves came a day after Finland seized a ship believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet on suspicion that the vessel caused an outage of the separate Estlink 2 undersea power cable from Finland to Estonia on Wednesday.
The Finnish authorities also suspect the vessel damaged or broke four internet lines.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022.
Moscow has previously denied any involvement in damage to Baltic Sea infrastructure.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte wrote in a post on the X platform: “Spoke with [Finnish President Alexander Stubb] about the ongoing Finnish-led investigation into possible sabotage of undersea cables. I expressed my full solidarity and support. NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea.”
The vessel seized by Finland, an old oil tanker called the Eagle S, sails under a Cook Islands flag and reportedly belongs to the Russian shadow fleet.
“We will continue to strengthen NATO and EU measures against Russian Shadow Fleet,” Stubb said on Friday.
“Had Eagle S not been stopped, more damage would have happened,” he added.
Potential sabotage of the Estlink 1 cable could have severe consequences for Estonia.
The country is already facing problems with power supplies during the winter as a result of the Estlink 2 outage which, according to Finnish operator Fingrid, will take months to repair.
Meanwhile, Estonia is in February planning to decouple from the Soviet-era power grid it shares with Russia and Belarus.
The operator of the Estonian power grid, Elering, said that the damage to the Estlink 2 cable could inflate electricity prices but would not prevent the planned decoupling from taking place.
After the decoupling, Estonia will be connected to the European power system via Poland and will thus stop relying on Russian operators to maintain its grid.
Estonia’s defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, said the protection of the Estlink 1 cable should be treated as an international issue and carried out as a joint military operation.
Estonia has also decided to apply to the International Maritime Organization by February to update maritime law, which it says currently does not cover underwater damage.
Estonia’s justice minister, Liisa Pakosta, said that bringing clarity to legislation on how countries should deal with such cases would minimize the possibility of any disputes ending up in an international court.
Pakosta added that cases of ships dragging their anchor “in order to harm the undersea infrastructure” should be directly covered by the law.
