It was already reported that the “EstLink 2” electric cable connecting Estonia and Finland stopped working on Wednesday.
As Estonian media reported on Thursday, TTJA was informed that two communication cables belonging to “Elisa” group and one communication cable belonging to “CITIC Telecom” were damaged.
The cause of the outage is not yet known, but cable owners are currently repairing the damage.
According to the telecommunications companies that provide communication services via cables, the disturbances have not significantly affected end users, all services and communications between Estonia and Finland are working.
Estonia’s external connections are duplicated many times, and in the event of a submarine cable failure, alternative functioning submarine cables or surface cables to Latvia can be used to ensure cross-border Internet access and the operation of various services.
The Finnish media previously reported that when EstLink 2 stopped working, the ship “Xin Xin Tiang 2” sailing under the Hong Kong flag was nearby. Later, news emerged that the Russian “shadow fleet” ship “Eagle S” flying the flag of the Cook Islands was also nearby.
After the latest incidents in the Gulf of Finland, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs expresses his assessment on social networks that the damage to the underwater cables between Finland and Estonia is most likely not a coincidence.
“The protection of critical marine infrastructure must be one of the main tasks of NATO and the Baltic Sea,” emphasizes Rinkēvičs.