Finland arrested a tanker of the Russian “shadow” fleet that interrupted the Internet and power cables

Special units of the Finnish coast guard and police boarded the Eagle S tanker on Thursday, December 26, which, according to documents, was sailing from the Russian port of Ust-Luga to the Egyptian Port Said with a cargo of Russian oil, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The tanker was detained on suspicion of intentionally damaging four Internet cables (three Finno-Estonian and one Finno-German) and a power cable running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea in the area between Finland and Estonia.

The inspection revealed that the ship was missing one of the anchors, which was suspected of being used to damage the cables.

Unlike the Chinese vessel Yi Peng, which is suspected of damaging two internet cables in the Baltic Sea in November 2024 and was detained in international waters, the Eagle S tanker was detained in Finnish sovereign waters. Therefore, to detain and interrogate the Finnish crew, permission from the country in which the ship is registered is not required.