Estonia steps up patrols in the icy Baltic Sea in a show of force after suspected cable sabotage

ABOARD THE EML SAKALA IN THE BALTIC SEA (AP) - As they plied the gray, icy waters of the Baltic Sea west of Russia on Thursday, the crew of the Estonian minehunter EML Sakala kept a careful eye on any vessels slowing down suspiciously or suddenly changing course.

They use binoculars and cameras with long zoom lenses, logging the names of ships, scouring them for missing anchors or trailing cables. The Sakala has approached about 200 vessels in a week at sea.

It is one of three Estonian navy ships that are part of stepped-up maritime patrols by NATO countries after the Estlink-2 power cable and communication links between Finland and Estonia were damaged Dec. 25. A month earlier, two other undersea data cables were damaged.

Suspicion immediately fell on Russia, although nothing has been proven and the Kremlin denied involvement in damaging the infrastructure, which provides power and communication for thousands of Europeans.

For the West, the incidents are a test of resolve in the face of what are believed to be widespread sabotage attacks in Europe allegedly linked to Moscow following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"The main thing is to show force," Lt. Cmdr. Meelis Kants of the Estonian navy told The Associated Press aboard the Sakala.

After the Dec. 25 incident with the Estlink 2, Finnish police and border guards seized the Eagle S, an oil tanker that had just left a Russian port, after it was suspected of cutting the power and four telecommunications cables by dragging its anchor.

The Eagle S, flagged in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, is suspected of being part of Moscow's "shadow fleet" used to avoid sanctions on Russian oil exports, Finnish authorities said. The ship was carrying 35,000 tons of oil and investigators allege it left a drag trail with its anchor for almost 100 kilometers (62 miles) on the sea bed before it was stopped and escorted to the vicinity of a Finnish port.

The damage to the Estlink 2, which can provide about half of the electricity needs for Estonia in winter, did not disrupt service, although it did drive up energy prices in the Baltic nations.

The cable is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) long and is located at a depth of 90 meters (295 feet) at its deepest point, across one of the busiest shipping lanes in Europe. Repairs could cost tens of millions of dollars and might not be restored until late summer, said Finland's electricity grid operator.

The undersea cables and pipelines that crisscross the sea link Nordic, Baltic and central European countries, promote trade, energy security and, in some cases, reduce dependence on Russian energy resources.

Ten Baltic Sea cables have been damaged since 2023, affecting Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Germany and Lithuania. At least two incidents involved ships later accused of dragging their anchors.

"The sea domain is currently the most contested because it's also strategically important," Maj. Gen. Andrus Merilo, commander of the Estonian military, told AP in December.

Western nations need to be "more proactive and operate to deter any activities,” he said.

The Estlink 2 disruption came just over a month after a Chinese ship, the Yi Peng 3, left the Russian port of Ust-Luga, west of St. Petersburg, shortly before it allegedly damaged cables linking Sweden and Lithuania and Finland and Germany.

The ship was stopped by the Danish navy and spent a month idled in a Danish shipping lane before resuming its journey Dec. 21 after representatives from Western nations boarded it along with Chinese investigators. No details of the inspection were released.

In October 2023, a Chinese-registered ship was suspected of severing a gas pipeline and fiber-optic cable between Finland and Estonia by dragging its anchor. That ship was not stopped and continued its journey.

Of particular interest to the naval patrols is Russia's shadow fleet of vessels with obscure ownership, acquired to ship its oil and evade Western sanctions.

The Eagle S had multiple violations including fire safety, navigation equipment and pump room ventilation and cannot sail until repaired, according to Finnish authorities. The shipping news journal Lloyd's List reported it previously was fitted with surveillance devices to monitor naval activity - abnormal for a merchant ship.

The Baltic Sea incidents take place against a backdrop of allegations of Russian sabotage, attacks and killings in Europe, which have increased since the invasion of Ukraine.

Such attacks are "often in the shadows," Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told AP.

"You don't really know - at least not from the beginning - who is behind it. Is it an accident? Is it not? Is it hostile activity or not?" he said, adding that the goal is to scare people and create a "political mess.”

While European authorities have acted more decisively in recent months to halt ships suspected of sabotage, officials have stopped short of categorically pointing the finger at Moscow without ironclad proof.

Following the Estlink 2 incident, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told the German newspaper Die Welt that the "sabotage attempts in the Baltic Sea are not isolated incidents" but "part of a pattern of deliberate and coordinated actions to damage our digital and energy infrastructure."

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and German Foreign Minister Annalenna Baerbock also suggested the similar incidents in the Baltic cannot be a coincidence.

Merilo said the West must see the actions as building to the "next phase of escalation" by Russia and be more forceful in saying: "We have some evidence, we cannot maybe prove it but we have to count it in as part of the ongoing operation."

To get ahead of potential threats from hostile states, European nations must address them "on the same footing as we do with our collective security in NATO. This is a matter for all of us," Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told AP.

In December, the Joint Expeditionary Force, made up of 10 European nations from the Nordic and Baltic countries plus the U.K., Iceland and the Netherlands, agreed to cooperate more closely to counter Russia's use of shadow ships.

They said they had tasked maritime authorities with requesting proof of insurance from suspected ships sailing through northern Europe, although that did not stop the Eagle S.

Since then, the nations said they would use an AI-assisted computer program to help monitor and calculate the risk posed by each ship, with a system to warn NATO about suspicious vessels.

Although the Baltic Sea is ringed by NATO members now that Finland and Sweden have joined since the invasion of Ukraine, the critical cables and pipelines are in a shallow area that is open to all ships, making such infrastructure an easy target for sabotage.

During its patrols, the Sakala monitored a ship sailing from Finland to the U.K and an Antigua-and-Barbuda-flagged cargo ship traveling from Vyborg, Russia, to Gdansk, Poland.

If the remaining power cable also was damaged, Estonia would have to rely largely on domestically produced energy at increased costs to consumers, which could increase pressure on the government - something that would benefit Moscow.

"The Baltic Sea is something that we need to defend. We need to be here," Kants said on board the patrol ship.

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Burrows reported from Tallinn, Estonia, and London.