Finland's national power grid operator (Fingrid) is seeking the formal seizure of the oil tanker suspected of damaging an electric power cable in the Baltic Sea last month.
Fingrid said in a statement it had filed an application with the Helsinki District Court to seize the Eagle S to help secure its financial claim for damages related to the breakdown of the undersea Estlink 2 electricity interconnector.
The cable between Finland and Estonia was suddenly disconnected from the grid on December 25 along with telecommunications lines. The Eagle S was detained by Finnish authorities and is being held in Finnish waters in the Baltic Sea pending an investigation.
Fingrid will begin a new inspection of the cable on January 3 to determine the scale of the damage and begin repairs, a Fingrid official told AFP.
"Further investigations at the damage site are expected to provide more information about the extent of the damages and enable more detailed planning and scheduling of the repair," Fingrid said in the statement.
Investigators have said they found a track on the seabed dozens of kilometers long indicating the ship dragged its anchor, but they have yet to find the anchor.
“The trail ends where the ship lifted the anchor chain, and from this place to the east [the trail] stretches for several tens, if not almost a hundred kilometers,” a representative of the Finnish investigation said in an interview with Finnish news outlet Yle.
SEE ALSO: Danish Military Keeps Watch On Chinese Ship Suspected Of Baltic Cable SabotageFinland's customs service has said it believes the Eagle S, which set sail from a Russian port, is part of a shadow fleet of tankers used to circumvent sanctions on Russian oil. Investigators found it was missing an anchor after it was detained.
The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency on January 2 began an inspection of the tanker that it said is independent of the law enforcement investigation.
According to the global ship monitoring website MarineTraffic, the ship significantly reduced speed at the same time interference was detected in the electrical power cable, according to Finnish media.
Fingrid said last week it expected the cable to return to service in August. The cost of the repair work will be tens of millions of euros.
The owner of the vessel, United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLC FZ, has previously asked that Finnish authorities to release it. The company has not responded to Fingrid’s request to seize the vessel.
Moscow has said Finland's seizure of the ship is not a matter for Russia.
NATO last week announced that it would strengthen its military presence in the Baltic Sea following the damage caused to the Estlink 2 and similar incidents in the Baltic Sea since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Energy and communications infrastructure in particular have been targeted as part of what experts and politicians call Russia's hybrid war with Western countries.