Suspects plead not guilty to sabotage in Baltic Sea cable breaches

25/8/2025 18:10

The captain and two officers of an oil tanker accused of severing five undersea power and telecoms cables when their vessel left Russia and sailed through the Gulf of Finland pleaded not guilty as their trial began in Helsinki on Monday.



NATO allies with forces stationed around the Baltic Sea went on high alert after the December 25 incident, one of a string of suspicious cable and gas pipeline outages in the region since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.



Prosecutors say the Eagle S tanker deliberately dragged its anchor along the seabed to sever the Estlink 2 power cable linking Finland and Estonia, as well as four internet cables in the Christmas Day incident.



Finnish security forces intercepted the ship and boarded it from helicopters after ordering it to move into Finnish territorial waters.



The three defendants pleaded not guilty in court, denying all charges and rejecting the cable owners' claims for damages that amount to tens of millions of euros.