“The European Union also condemned any deliberate destruction of Europe’s critically important infrastructure”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“We strongly condemn any deliberate destruction of Europe’s critical infrastructure. The suspect vessel is part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which threatens security and the environment and funds the Russian military budget. We will propose further measures, including sanctions, against this fleet,” the statement said.
The European Union notes that in response to these incidents, Brussels is stepping up efforts to protect submarine cables, including strengthening information sharing, new detection technologies, as well as underwater repair capabilities and international cooperation.
In recent months, there have been several cases of cable damage in the Baltic Sea.
In the afternoon of December 25, the power cable Estlink 2, which runs across the Baltic Sea between Estonia and Finland, stopped working. On the morning of December 26, a spokeswoman for the Estonian network company Elering, Katlin Klemmer, said that her company and the Finnish operator Fingrid were still searching for the location of the cable damage.
According to the media, Finland detained the Eagle S oil tanker. The vessel, which is linked to the so-called Russian shadow fleet, was spotted in the area where the Estlink 2 cable is laid. According to the marine traffic monitoring service Marinetraffic, the vessel significantly reduced its speed when when interference began to be detected in the cable, reports Yle.