Finnish authorities detain vessel over damaged undersea cable in Gulf of Finland

Finland’s Coast Guard has detained a vessel over damage to an undersea telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland, the agency announced on December 31.

According to the statement, a submarine cable owned by telecommunications company Elisa was damaged on the morning of December 31.

“The Coast Guard located a vessel suspected of causing the cable damage. The site of the damage, as indicated by Elisa, is within Estonia’s economic zone,” the announcement said.

This follows a similar incident last December, when the EstLink 2 undersea power line, which also connects Estonia and Finland, went out of service. At that time, Finnish authorities detained the tanker Eagle S, sailing under the flag of the Cook Islands, on suspicion of damaging the cable.

The investigation into the latest incident is ongoing, and authorities have not released details about the detained vessel or its crew.