On Wednesday, a power cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea experienced an outage, leading to an investigation, as stated by Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. The interruption in power transmission through the Estlink-2 cable was reported, with authorities actively looking into the matter. Fortunately, Orpo assured that this incident would not impact electricity supplies in Finland.
Estonian network operator Elering confirmed that there was sufficient spare capacity to meet power demands on the Estonian side, according to reports from public broadcaster ERR. This outage comes amidst concerns regarding undersea infrastructure in the Baltic region, following the severing of two data cables in November - one between Finland and Germany, and the other between Lithuania and Sweden.
German defense officials raised suspicions of sabotage in the previous incidents, particularly in light of hybrid warfare threats from Russia. In a recent speech, Germany's defense minister alluded to the possibility of sabotage without providing concrete evidence or attributing responsibility.
In a separate incident, the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, which historically transported gas from Russia to Germany, were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Authorities have labeled these events as sabotage and initiated criminal investigations.
Notably, the Estlink-2 cable had experienced downtime earlier this year for repairs due to damage from a short circuit, potentially linked to the cable's intricate positioning. The ongoing challenges with undersea infrastructure in the Baltic region underscore the importance of safeguarding critical connections and addressing vulnerabilities to ensure reliable energy transmission.
