sabotatge a les connnexions Estònia-Finlàndia

Finland seized an oil tanker

The Finnish authorities yesterday boarded and seized an oil tanker in Finnish waters on the suspicion that it was involved in cutting vital undersea cables as an act of sabotage. The ship is registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, and it had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was detained.

The police said they were investigating whether the vessel was involved in the cutting on Wednesday of the Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. Four other cables, carrying data, were also reported to have been damaged. The police called the latest cable cuts “aggravated vandalism.”

The Finnish authorities said the tanker might be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which emerged as a way to circumvent Western-imposed price caps on Russian oil transported by sea. It involves mostly unmarked tankers not easily traced to Russia. The caps were introduced several months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Kazakhstan: Investigators looking into the deadly crash of a passenger plane this week were focusing on the possibility that a Russian air defense system had struck the aircraft. (A Russian news agency instead said that the jet, from Azerbaijan Airlines, had hit a flock of birds.)

nytimes, 27-12-24