The governments in Estonia and Finland said in two separate announcements that they will convene for emergency meetings as Estonian and Finnish investigators try to find out who is behind the damage to an electrical cable in the Baltic Sea connecting the two countries.
Repairs to the 170-kilometer long Estlink 2 interconnection cable will take months, and the interruption of supply through this line could cause problems in the power supply during the winter, Finnish operator Fingrid said in a statement.
Police and media say Finnish authorities have detained a Russia-linked ship named 'Eagle S', while investigations are underway into whether it damaged a power cable in the Baltic Sea and several data cables.
The "Estlink-2" line stopped working shortly after noon on Wednesday. Officials expressed concern that this could be another attack similar to the incidents that damaged two data cables in November and the explosion that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline in September 2022.
"Even though it's holiday time, many people in Estonia and Finland have been working for the last two days to identify the problem of the Estlink-2 line interruption," Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said on the X network, adding that "my government will keep an extraordinary meeting this afternoon. We are in close contact with our northern Baltic colleagues".
Two data transmission cables, one running between Finland and Germany and another running between Lithuania and Sweden, were damaged in November.
Germany's defense minister said officials had to assume the incident was "sabotage," but he did not provide any evidence or say who might be responsible.
His comments came during a discussion on hybrid warfare threats from Russia.
The Nord Stream pipelines, which once transported natural gas from Russia to Germany, were damaged by an underwater explosion in September 2022. Authorities have described the incident as sabotage and have launched a criminal investigation.
The Estlink-2 line was out of service for most of the year due to some repairs to damage that may have been caused by the line's complex positioning, ERR television said.
The operator of the Estonian electricity grid Elerin said that it has enough spare capacity to meet the country's needs, public television ERR reported on its website./Voice of America (A2 Televizion)
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