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Helsinki is investigating whether acts of sabotage led to leaks in the Baltic gas pipeline and breaks in data cables between Finland and Estonia.
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said the damage to pipelines and cables was caused by “external activity” but the exact cause was “not yet clear”. Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said late Tuesday that the two undersea passages “could have been deliberately damaged.”
The potential sabotage echoes last year’s explosions in the Baltic Sea that destroyed the Nord Stream twin pipeline linking Germany and Russia.
The president said he had spoken with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg about the damage. Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia, became the latest member of the Western military alliance in April, upending decades of non-aligned status following Moscow’s sweeping invasion of Ukraine. Estonia has been a member of NATO since 2004.
In recent days, Finland and Estonia have reported possible leaks in the 77-kilometer pipeline between the two countries, which opens in 2020 and spans the Bay of Helsinki.
Officials said a vessel sailed through the pipeline, causing damage, but they were unable to confirm whether it was intentional sabotage or an accident such as a damaged anchor due to stormy conditions.
“Finland and Estonia will continue to cooperate in the investigation. We are also in constant contact with our allies and partners… Finland’s level of preparedness is very good. These incidents have no impact on our supply security,” Niinistö added.
Stoltenberg said NATO was “sharing information and standing ready to support relevant allies.”
Henry Vanhanen, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, said the willingness of Finnish authorities to suspect acts of sabotage showed “good reasons to assume hostile intent”.
“This is a test for the alliance: If evidence of Russian interference, for example, does come to light, how will it react?”
He added: “If Russia is the culprit, the big question is, why did it need to cut off Finland’s gas and telecom connections? Is there a wider plan?”
Norsar, the Norwegian Earthquake Foundation, say on tuesday Earlier on Sunday, it detected a possible explosion in the Baltic Sea. Signals from stations in Finland indicated an incident near a gas pipeline off the Estonian coast. It said further analysis of the data was underway.
Estonian Foreign Minister Magus Çakna said he had discussed the “worrying situation” with his Finnish counterpart. Finnish Prime Minister Petri Orpo said the cutting of the data cable appeared to have occurred in Estonian waters, while the gas pipeline leak occurred in Finnish waters.
Despite extensive investigations in Denmark, Sweden and Germany, no one was publicly blamed for the Nord Stream explosion in September 2022. Media leaks suggest German prosecutors are focusing on a possible pro-Ukrainian group, while Scandinavia’s attention is focused on a number of Russian warships observed in the region.
Stoltenberg made it clear that an attack on the energy infrastructure of one of the alliance’s member states could be considered an attack on NATO. Speaking from an oil rig in Norway in March, he told the Financial Times that “we can’t protect every meter of this infrastructure every time” because Norway alone has 8,000 kilometers of pipes and cables .
Both Finland and Estonia receive natural gas from other sources – Finland via an LNG terminal, Estonia via a gas storage plant in neighboring Latvia and an LNG terminal in Lithuania. Most of the gas in the pipeline was being transported from Finland to Latvia via Estonia at the time of the leak.
Olpo said the investigation was at an early stage but reassured Finns that the security of their energy supply was “very good”.
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