A court in Finland denied a request to release an oil tanker, which is suspected to have damaged an undersea power line and four telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea, according to a Reuters report.
The country had seized the oil tanker on December 26 as it was suspected of damaging the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and the telecommunications cables.
The Eagle S tanker was carrying Russian oil, and had caused damage by dragging its anchor across the seabed.
A lawyer representing United Arab Emirates’ Caravella LLC FZ, which owns the tanker, has sought for the release of the ship and its crew, according to the Reuters report.
Helsinki District Court Judge Tatu Koistinen was quoted in the report by Reuters:
This district court has rejected the claim of the defendant, which means that this seizure remains in force.
According to the report, the lawyer representing Caravella is likely to file a new motion with the court for the release of the vessel.
Baltic Sea on high alert since Ukraine invasion
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the countries around the Baltic Sea have been on high alert due to outages of power cables, telecommunications links and gas pipelines.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance of 30 countries said last week that it would increase its presence in the Baltic Sea.
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict will complete three years in February, and there has been no end in sight for a while.
After the invasion of Ukraine, several western powers, including the US and UK imposed heavy sanctions on Russia’s energy exports.
The sanctions were imposed to hinder Moscow’s war efforts against Ukraine.
However, Russia, which is one of the top exporters of oil and gas, managed to ship most of its oil products to Asia.
Developing countries such as India and China have gobbled up most of the Russian oil, which was shunned by Europe and the US.
Increasing shadow fleet in Baltic Sea
Additionally, Russia has also managed to run a shadow fleet of tankers in the Baltic region to evade western sanctions over the past couple of years.
According to the Reuters report, the customs service in Finland believed that the Eagle S tanker is part of such a shadow fleet of ageing tankers, which are used to escape western sanctions.
The police in Finland’s port of Porvoo had brought the tanker to the bay.
The vessel is registered in the Cook Islands, Reuters reported.
According to the report, the police have been investing and questioning the crew of the tanker.
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