Finland has stopped and boarded a ship suspected of causing damage to the Estlink 2 undersea power cable and three other internet lines on Christmas Day. The Cook Islands-registered oil tanker, called Eagle S, is owned by Caravella LLCFZ, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, and is apparently the only vessel that the company owns. At the time of the stop, the Financial Times said that the ship was carrying oil from Russia to Egypt and that public records placed it over the damaged cable during the time of the outage.
Sources say that the Eagle S is part of Russia’s shadow fleet, composed of old and dilapidated oil tankers. These vessels are registered in and owned by corporations based in other countries, and Russia uses them to circumvent international sanctions on its oil exports. Because of this most recent event, Finnish President Alexander Stubb posted on X (formerly Twitter) yesterday, “We must be able to prevent the risks posed by ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet.”
