This cargo ship was at the power cable between Finland and Estonia at 12:26
This cargo ship was at the power cable between Finland and Estonia at 12:26
Hong Kongin lipun alla seilaavan rahtialuksen liikkuminen sopii yhteen EstLink 2 -kaapelin häiriön alkamisen kanssa.
finland's transmission grid company fingrid announced that estlink 2 disconnected from the grid at 12.26. the power transfer of the connection was 650 mw when it disconnected.
xin xin tian 2 left st petersburg on christmas eve, and according to marinetraffic it is on its way to port said in egypt.
fingrid is currently investigating where the connection was lost. for now it is not certain whether the connection was lost on land or if something happened to the submarine cable. it is also not known whether the xin xin tian 2 vessel had anything to do with the power cable fault.
read also xin xin tian 2 moved near the power cable – this is what is now known about the power connection between finland and estonia being cut – nothing is ruled out, all stones and stumps are being turned and we will see what caused it [the outage]. yes, that [sabotage] is also considered an option, fingrid's control room manager arto pahkin told iltalehti earlier.
There have been other recent incidents of sabotage involving Chinese and Hong Kong-flagged cargo ships in the Baltic Sea.
In November, the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 was suspected of severing two critical telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea. In October last year, the Hong Kong-registered NewNew Polar Bear cargo ship was linked to damage to the BalticConnector gas pipeline.
 Indicative map of the locations of the Estlink cables between Estonia and Finland. il/aleksi nissilä, openstreetmap Article edited on 25.12.2024 at 21.58: The power transmission of the connection has been clarified based on a Fingrid press release.
Capitalisation matters.
The context should tell people it's obviously megawatts, but a gentle reminder how capitalisation matters; "mw" isn't a SI unit technically, as the SI system capitalizes units which are named after people, so W for watt, named after Watt.
Lowercase m is the prefix for "milli-", meaning 1/1000th. Uppercase M is for "mega-" as in 1 000 000.
So 650 MW.
Third cut cable by a ship from russia (or with russian captain).
Scandinavians: "We just don't know what happened!"
If this was dragged off with an anchor or similar it's a fucking declaration of war.
Not that I want to defend Russians here—but at surface-level, this appears to be the second Chinese ship in a row to do something like this.
I don't think that the flag is likely all that relevant.
Assuming both (a) this was the result of a ship dragging an anchor over the cable as it crossed over and (b) the severing isn't accidental, Russia could have just paid off someone on the ship to drag an anchor. They wouldn't need to involve the Chinese government.
Like, think of those cases in 2024 where Russian intelligence sought out and paid off criminals in Europe to perform acts of sabotage, mostly arson. The people involved were nationals of other countries in Europe, but it's not like they're acting as agents of the state whose nationality they hold. They're just willing to take some level of personal risk for money.
EDIT:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68899130
Like, the
threefive guys in that incident were British, but that's not really the relevant factor -- that doesn't mean that 10 Downing Street is involved.
It's one thing to know and another one to speak out loud.
I feel we are way beyond that point.
Sounds like Europe is going to have to get tough on China or else Chinese ships are going to keep doing this.
Pretty sure it's just Russia behind this. They are trying to get Europe to alienate China too, which would naturally make China align more with Russia. Even if it were China behind this, we cannot fight an economic war against China, it's just not doable.
It’s both, but China is the bigger partner of the two.
You cannot appease China enough to make them side with you.
It's a weird timeline to be when we likely gonna be at war against an axis of usa+china+russia vs the rest of the world.
That seems like a ridiculously unlikely alliance. What on earth would make USA + Russia + China team up like that?
Damn, this is some serious brain damage you have here.