Finland detains tanker after damage to Finland–Estonia subsea power cable

According to the Finnish Police, a fault was detected early in the morning on 31 December 2025 in a telecommunications cable running between Helsinki and Tallinn across the Gulf of Finland. The damaged cable belongs to the Finnish operator Elisa, which the police say reported the fault to the Border Guard's Operations Centre, triggering an investigation the same day. The reported damage site lay within Estonia's exclusive economic zone, while the vessel suspected in connection with the incident was located in Finland's exclusive economic zone.

The Finnish Border Guard reported that a vessel's anchor chain had been lowered into the sea. Authorities instructed the vessel to stop and raise its anchor and requested that it move to a safe anchorage within Finnish territorial waters. According to the police, Finnish authorities subsequently took control of the vessel as part of a joint operation. The article does not name the vessel or state its flag.

The police said the Helsinki Police Department is leading a criminal investigation conducted together with the Border Guard, the Finnish Defence Forces, Customs, the transport regulator Traficom, the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes), grid operator Fingrid and the National Prosecutor's Office. The suspected offences under investigation are aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with telecommunications.

The investigation remains at an early stage, and the Finnish authorities have characterised the matter as a criminal inquiry rather than an established act of sabotage. The presence of a lowered anchor chain near the fault is consistent with a pattern of suspected anchor-dragging incidents reported in the Baltic region, but the police did not attribute the damage to any vessel, state or motive, and no perpetrator has been confirmed. The reporting concerns damage to an Elisa telecommunications cable between Helsinki and Tallinn; the cause and any wider attribution remain unproven pending the outcome of the investigation.