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Finland said a Russia-linked oil tanker was about to wreak havoc on its undersea cables.
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The president said officials intervened for about 12 minutes before the damage became “much worse.”
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The tanker is accused of being part of a Russian 'shadow fleet' sabotaging European infrastructure.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday that his country had stopped the crew of a Russia-linked oil tanker just minutes before it caused catastrophic damage to undersea cables in the Baltic Sea.
“If it had lasted another 12 minutes, the carnage would have been much worse than the four basic cables that were there,” Stubb told reporters at this week's Baltic-focused NATO summit in Helsinki.
The tanker, the Eagle S, was seized in late December as Finland investigated recent damage to the Estlink-2 power line, one of two vital cables carrying electricity in the Baltic Sea.
Four data cables were also cut.
Finnish investigators have accused the crew of the Eagle S of attempting to sabotage the cables by dragging the ship's anchor for miles across the seabed.
The Finnish head of the investigation, Risto Lohi, told Reuters on Tuesday that the Eagle S would likely also have tried to sabotage the other power cable, the Estlink-1, if police had not boarded the ship.
“There would have been an almost immediate danger that other cables or pipes related to our critical underwater infrastructure could have been damaged,” said Lohi, head of Finland's National Investigation Agency.
On Tuesday, Stubb said the Finnish security process for protecting the cables began with the private company overseeing them. If a cable is cut, the company alerts authorities, who then try to find possible ships around the location of the damage.
“Once that happens, you identify the ship and you contact the ship. Number four, you stop the ship,” Stubb said.
Stubb added that Finnish authorities would force the ship to enter Finnish waters, where officers could then legally board the ship.
That process is now going to change. European members of NATO announced at the summit that they would launch a new program called the 'Baltic Sentry' to jointly patrol near Baltic Sea infrastructure.
The surveillance program involves frigates, seaplanes and “a small fleet of naval drones,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said at the summit.
The investigation into the Eagle S is of particular interest to the European Union because it has been suspected for years that Russia is deliberately trying to covertly damage Western submarine infrastructure. Other cables, such as two fiber optic data cables between Finland and Germany, were cut last year.
Although the Eagle S is registered in the Cook Islands, European officials say it is linked to Russia because it was carrying 35,000 tons of unleaded gasoline loaded at Russian ports.
They have accused the ship of being part of a Russian “shadow fleet,” or a network of ships whose owners are registered outside Russia and which actually carry sanctioned Russian oil.
Russia has denied involvement in any such sabotage. The Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.
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