Finland has moved one step closer to levelling possible criminal charges against three senior crew members of an oil tanker accused of being part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”.
In December 2024 the Finnish coastguard had boarded and seized an oil tanker called the Eagle S, and sailed the vessel into Finnish waters.
The Eagle S had been placed under investigation for “grave sabotage”, after it was suspected of causing damage to an undersea cable (the Estlink-2 power cable and communication link) connecting Finland and Estonia.
Possible charges?
It was the latest incident of damaged subsea cables in the Baltic sea, although the Kremlin continues to deny involvement in damaging undersea infrastructure, which provides power and communication for thousands of Europeans.
The Eagle S was thought to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers that seek to evade Western sanctions on the sale of Russian oil. After three months of detention, Finland eventually released the Eagle S from Finnish custody.
But now six months after the cable damage incident, the Associated Press reported that Finnish authorities have accused senior officers of the Eagle S of criminal offences.
According to the AP, the Eagle S was carrying 35,000 tons of oil and investigators allege it left a drag trail with its anchor for almost 100 kilometres (62 miles) on the sea bed before it was stopped and escorted to the vicinity of a Finnish port.
The senior officers accused, whose names were not made public, were the master, the chief mate and the second mate, Finnish police said in a statement Friday.
The trio was responsible for the safe passage, navigation and operation of the tanker and are suspected of aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with telecommunications, the Associated Press reported.
The investigators’ findings have been referred to Finnish prosecutors for possible charges.
“The criminal investigation has examined and assessed, among other things, the extent of their responsibility for the condition of the vessel and the degree to which they should have observed the anchor falling into the sea,” Detective Chief Inspector Sami Liimatainen, who is leading the case for the National Bureau of Investigation, was quoted by AP as saying.
Cable damage incidents
There have been a number of undersea cable damage incidents in the Baltic sea recently.
And on 17 and 18th November 2024, two undersea cables located in the Baltic sea, were severed in less than 24 hours – prompting sabotage concerns.
A Chinese ship (Yi Peng Three) was briefly detained by the Danish navy, but sailed off after China reportedly denied a Swedish request to board the vessel.
Then in December Finland seized the Eagle S, and detained it for three months.
In late January 2025 Swedish authorities opened an investigation into suspected aggravated sabotage and seized a ship (the MV Vezhen), after damage was discovered to the undersea fibre-optic cable running between the Latvian city of Ventspils and Sweden’s Gotland.
The MV Vezhen was later released after Swedish prosecutors ruled out initial suspicions that sabotage had caused the damage.
And in February 2025 Swedish authorities began investigation, after another breakage was found on a cable that runs between Germany and Finland off the island of Gotland, south of Stockholm, in the Swedish economic zone.
Subsea cables carry the vast bulk (99 percent) of all online data or ‘traffic’ (but cables also carry electricity), which has prompted growing concern about their vulnerability in the face of the tense geopolitical situation, amid Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
