Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia was severed on December 25. This is the latest in a series of incidents involving cables and gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
The Finnish Prime Minister said that the power outage in the latest incident did not affect the country's power supply.
The government is still vigilant even during Christmas and is investigating the situation, Petteri Orpo said on social network X.
The head of the Finnish power grid's operations Fingrid Arto Pahkin told public broadcaster broadcasting that the possibility of sabotage cannot be ruled out.
According to Fingrid, the power line on the Estlink 2 cable that carries electricity from Finland to Estonia was cut at 12:36 on December 25, local time.
Estonia Public Radio (ERR) reported that Elering - Estonia's power grid operator - has also confirmed the disconnection. Elering said the cause of the incident was still unknown and investigations were ongoing in both countries.
Estlink 2, which has been in operation since 2014, is an HVDC single-altitude power line connecting Finland and Estonia. The line was built to supplement Estlink 1, the first HVDC line between the two countries, which came into operation in 2006. Earlier this year, Estlink 2 was shut down for several months for maintenance.
Estlink 2 has a transmission capacity of 650 megawatt, while Estlink 1 has a smaller capacity of 350 megawatt.
Two telecommunications cables near the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea connecting Sweden and Denmark were also severed last month.
The Arelion cable running from Sweden's Gotland to Lithuania was severed early on November 17 and the C-Lion 1 cable connecting Helsinki and Germany's Rostock port was severed south of Sweden's Oland Island the following day.
The suspect in the cable break is the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3. According to tracking websites, the Yi Peng 3 passed through the cables around the time of the cable break.
Earlier this week, Sweden said China had rejected requests from prosecutors to investigate the Yi Peng 3 and the ship had left the Baltic region.
Tensions have been rising around the Baltic region since the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022.
