Finland says it has found more than two dozen serious defects on the seized Eagle S ship, which was carrying Russian oil and is accused of deliberately dragging its anchor in the Baltic Sea on December 25, damaging an underwater transmission line and four telecommunications cables.

On Tuesday, Finnish police said they recovered an anchor from the seabed, which was found along the route of the ship Eagle S. Finnish officials believe the underwater cables, which run between Finland and Estonia and are reinforced with steel and several layers of protective insulation, were torn by a powerful external force.

The ship is owned by Caravella LLC FZ, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, and eight crew members are now under investigation.

It is suspected to be part of Russia “shadow fleet”with which Moscow circumvents sanctions on Russian oil, the ship was seized by the Finnish authorities as part of a criminal investigation. The state public transport agency now says the vessel is prohibited work again until 32 problems are solved.

“At least it won’t sail for long. And that in itself, I think, is a smart move,” Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told CBC News.

The incident involving the Eagle S is the third case of damage to critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea in just over a month. One maritime risk expert says it sets a dangerous precedent that could have been predicted by the rise in suspicious behavior by Russia-linked vessels in the area.

3 cases of suspected sabotage

Repairs to the 170-kilometer Estlink 2 transmission line are expected to take up to seven months, and electricity prices could rise during Estonia’s winter. The country sent a patrol vessel to protect Estlink1, its second underwater power link to the Gulf of Finland.

Amid the suspected sabotage, NATO has pledged to increase its presence in the region and the UK has activated a new early warning system, which uses artificial intelligence to monitor and warn of potential maritime threats.

Hunter Christie said that when he worked for NATO before 2020, there were discussions about being able to target underwater infrastructure, but the talks were theoretical.

He says the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed that.

I don’t think many serious people would doubt that it was ordered by the Russian state, Hunter Christie said. “Official statements could be a little more cautious. But behind closed doors I don’t think anyone doubts the nature of this incident.”

Moscow said the seizure of the Eagle S was none of Russia’s business. But Alexander Kazakov, a Russian lawmaker, said on a state media program on December 27 that “Russia’s goal is to liberate the Baltic Sea.”

While he did not specifically say that Russia was behind the cable damage, he told the program that it was in response to actions taken by Ukraine and its Western allies.

“We are provoking them to escalate the situation in the Baltic Sea… so that we have something to answer.”

Hunter Christie believes Finland grounded the ship — which was flagged Cook Islands — sends a strong message to Russia, because it means it has one less ship to transport its oil.

“All of a sudden, something that looked like a cheap trick, a relatively cheap way to do a lot of damage and a lot of intimidation to two countries, could become a much more expensive proposition.”

incidents in November

Five weeks before the incident on Christmas Day, two undersea fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged.

The 218 km long Internet cable between Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland was damaged on November 17. The next day, the 1,200 km long cable connecting the capital of Finland, Helsinki, with the German port of Rostock was cut.

At the time, suspicion centered around a Chinese bulk carrier, the Yi Peng 3which was transporting Russian fertilizer.

After a month-long diplomatic standoff, China allowed investigators from Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark to board the ship. But Swedish officials later said China had not heeded the government’s request that a prosecutor be able to conduct a preliminary investigation on the ship.

The Yi Peng 3, which had been anchored for weeks in the Kattegat Sea between Denmark and the west coast of Sweden, left the area and traveled to Egypt on December 21.

“I think what we’re seeing is that the Russians and the Chinese are starting to use what I would call gray zone activities,” said Ami Daniel, co-founder and CEO of Windward, a naval intelligence firm. Windward has mapped underwater infrastructure, tracks ships and uses AI to help analyze vessel behavior and assess risk.

“I think we’re stepping into a whole new world of commercial shipping activities that are being used repeatedly to damage national infrastructure around the world.”

Taiwan says it suspects a Chinese-manned ship damaged an underwater cable last weekend. A director of the Hong Kong-registered company that owns the ship told Reuters there was no evidence of this.

“Cat and mouse game”

Daniel says his company led to the incidents in November accompanied by an increase in activity in the Baltic Sea by shadow tankers who were increasingly turning off their transmitters, hiding their location and disappearing from radar systems.

According to Windward, during the week of November 7, 116 vessels went dark, a 44 percent increase over what would be expected in the area.

Daniel said the public should view what’s happening as a game of “cat and mouse,” where an incident occurs followed by a response.

The UK announced on January 6 that it was activating an alert system, called Nordic Warden, as part of Combined Expeditionary Forcewhich consists of 10 countries. The system will use AI to monitor potential threats in 22 areas, including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel. If there is a potential threat to infrastructure, allies will be alerted.

Helsinki will host a summit of NATO leaders on the Baltic Sea next week, but Daniel says the main complicating factor in protecting the infrastructure is that it crosses vast international waters – and it’s not entirely clear which agencies are responsible for protecting it.

Estonian government will apply to the International Maritime Organization by February, calling on it to update the maritime law, which the country says does not address underwater damage or cover what should happen if a ship deliberately drags its anchor through critical infrastructure.

Estonia claims that modernizing the law would reduce the risk of such cases being dragged through international courts.

Daniel believes that European countries were “caught off guard, 100 percent” by incidents in the Baltic Sea.

“I think Russia and probably China are looking for the place that is probably the hardest for Western democracies to protect.”