This assessment is also shared by many European intelligence agencies, contrary to previous accusations from some Western officials.
Director of the Finnish Intelligence and Security Agency Juha Martelius said that there is no evidence that Russia is behind the cable breaks that occurred in the Baltic Sea in recent times.
In an interview with Finnish magazine Suomen Kuvalehti on March 12, Mr. Martelius admitted that the investigations did not find any signs of "intentional activity by the Russian state" related to submarine cable incidents.
Our assessment is that there is no intentional activity from the Russian state behind these incidents. This is also a view shared quite widely in the European intelligence community," he said.
In the past 2 years, many power and telecommunication cables under the Baltic Sea have been damaged in various incidents. Investigations show that some cargo ships have anchored under the seabed, accidentally breaking cables or damaging underground infrastructure.
Previously, some officials of NATO and the European Union (EU) accused Russia of carrying out sabotage activities in the region, considering this part of a "future war". However, so far, no concrete evidence has been released to prove these allegations.
The Russian side has repeatedly rejected the accusations, calling them "unreasonable" and unfounded.
According to Mr. Martelius, underground cable damage incidents actually occurred decades ago. However, before, they did not receive as much media attention as they do now.
Similar incidents have occurred since the early 2000s. At that time, they were not widely reported," he said.
The head of the Finnish intelligence agency also noted that, in some cases, Russia's undersea infrastructure itself is also affected. This makes the hypothesis that Russia deliberately sabotages even more unconvincing.
According to him, Russia has an interest in maintaining stable sea transport routes in the Baltic Sea, because this is an important area for its trade and maritime activities.
There are many factors showing that Russia has no motive to take such actions," Mr. Martelius said.
However, he also mentioned the issue called the "dark fleet" by the West - oil tankers or cargo ships believed to be operating to evade Western sanctions against Russia. According to him, many of these ships have poor maintenance and inexperienced crews, leading to incidents of pulling anchors at the seabed, damaging submarine cables.
However, Russia completely rejects the concept of "dark fleet", arguing that this is just a propaganda term to describe cargo ships that do not use insurance services of brokerage companies in London.
