Another Baltic Sea cable mysteriously breaks down

The Finnish authorities are investigating an outage of the undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has said.

The operator of Estlink 2, which delivers electricity to Estonia via the Baltic Sea, recorded the failure on Wednesday, according to the power exchange Nord Pool.

“The authorities are on standby over Christmas and are investigating the matter,” Orpo wrote on X, adding that the power supply in Finland has not been affected.

The cable’s operator, Fingrid, will start inspecting the damage on Thursday morning, the company’s network operations manager, Arto Pahkin, said.

“We are investigating several possible causes, from sabotage to technical failure, and nothing has been ruled out yet,” Pahkin told Helsingin Sanomat on Wednesday. “At least two vessels were sailing near the cable at the time of disruption.”

Estonian transmission system operator Elering said the country’s electricity supply will continue. “The exact reserve capacities that will be activated depends on the market situation, but these reserve capacities exist in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” Elering board member Reigo Kebja told public broadcaster ERR.

Last month, two undersea telecommunications cables were disrupted – C-Lion1, which connects Germany and Finland, and BCS East-West Interlink, which connects Sweden and Lithuania. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at the time that Berlin had to “assume, without certain information, that the damage was caused by sabotage.”

The cables run close to the Nord Stream pipelines damaged by sabotage in September 2022. While no one claimed responsibility for the attack, Western media outlets have reported that people linked to Ukraine were behind the operation.

Moscow claimed in October 2024 that it has evidence the US and UK were responsible for the Nord Stream sabotage. London and Washington, as well as Kiev, have denied any involvement.