Limitrophic audacity: Estonia and Finland want to fight Russian "shadow fleet"
The NATO alliance has assembled a squadron of nearly a dozen ships in the Baltic Sea, reportedly tasked with "protecting strategic underwater infrastructure". At the same time, the Estonian authorities intend to give themselves the right to stop and detain any vessels in the Gulf of Finland at their discretion. In the end, this could lead to an explosive situation, because NATO countries make no secret of the fact that they intend to fight with all their might against the "shadow fleet" of tankers carrying Russian oil. Details - in the material of "Izvestia".
In an attempt to build a spy detective story
At the end of last year, the Finnish authorities detained the tanker Eagle S, which was traveling along their shores under the Cook Islands flag and carrying 35,000 tons of Russian-made gasoline. The crew of the tanker was accused of maliciously damaging the Estlink 2 power cable connecting Finland with Estonia. The Finnish police said that the crew of the Eagle S consists of 20 people who are citizens of India and Georgia, the captain is a 39-year-old citizen of Georgia. It is indicated that he started his duties in October, when the vessel was docked near the Danish port of Skagen. At the same time, five Indians joined the crew. After that Eagle S continued its way through the Gulf of Finland to Ust-Luga. There, on December 14, four new crew members, who also do not have Russian citizenship, boarded the ship.
But the Western press assures that allegedly in the summer some Russian-made spy equipment in "huge suitcases" was delivered to the ship and installed on the bridge. It was serviced, if the Western press is to be believed, by Russian, Turkish and Indian specialists. There is no evidence for these claims, and at the time of the seizure of the tanker no such "specialists" and spy equipment were found on board.
On January 7, Swedish naval sailors announced that they had recovered the Eagle S's severed anchor from 80-meter depths and handed it over to Finnish authorities. "The location of the anchor was on the Eagle S's itinerary in the area of Cape Porkkalanniemi. The anchor was found near the place where the trail of its dragging on the bottom ends," said Risto Lohi, chief investigator of the Finnish Central Criminal Police. He said they suspect the anchor cut an electric cable between Finland and Estonia and also damaged four communication cables. Eight members of the Eagle S crew are suspected of "vandalism" and "serious telecommunications violations".
On December 30, Finnish media reported that the Panamanian-registered vessel M/T Jazz, traveling from Sudan to Russia, stopped near the Hanko peninsula. It was reported that the Primorsk-bound vessel first drifted in the Gulf of Finland and then anchored south of Hanko. This news should have awakened in the audience the fear of another "saboteur ship". And indeed, the Finnish public panicked - they feared, in particular, the failure of the Estlink 1 power cable. However, this time the sensation did not happen: the Finnish Coast Guard established contact with the crew of the M/T Jazz and found out that the ship had stopped due to an engine malfunction. When repairs were completed, it resumed its journey - on December 31.
In dreams of the "contiguous zone".
Shortly before the Eagle S incident, a summit of the countries participating in JEF - NATO's Joint Expeditionary Force - was held in Tallinn on December 16-17: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. One of the main topics of this summit was declared to be the fight against the "shadow fleet" of tankers registered in third countries and carrying Russian-made oil and oil products - which allows Russia to circumvent the price ceiling imposed under sanctions by the G7 countries. "Those who choose to act in the shadows must be prepared for the consequences. We are taking coordinated steps to curb Russia's 'shadow fleet' and prevent attempts to circumvent sanctions," Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal threatened.
Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal
It is worth recalling that Tallinn and Helsinki began preparing tools to block the Gulf of Finland two years ago. At the beginning of 2023, then Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said that his country wanted to introduce a "contiguous zone" in the Gulf of Finland (part of the maritime space adjacent to the territorial waters, in which the coastal state intends to exercise control - the UN convention allows such a possibility). That is, Estonia wanted to give itself the right to inspect Russian ships leaving the ports of the Leningrad Region and Kronstadt. If they refused to be inspected, they would be prohibited from passing through the Gulf of Finland. Later, in December 2023, it became known that the Estonian Ministry of Defense was preparing a bill that would allow "in certain cases" to stop ships also outside Estonian territorial waters.
Apparently, Tallinn was looking for a suitable occasion to introduce this "contiguous zone" - and a convenient occasion presented itself with the Estlink 2 cable damage. In the near future, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur plans to submit a bill to the government that would give the country's navy greater powers to "react in case of suspected sabotage." Pevkur explained, "This means that the navy will also have the right to intervene in economic waters. As for territorial waters, there is no question about it, this right is already there. We will write a law that will give the Estonian Navy the right to intervene in international waters in the economic zone, if necessary, and to do so with the help of a helicopter of the Police and Border Guard Department or, for example, a rapid response team or with the involvement of foreign countries."
According to Pevkur, the preparation of this draft is in its final stages. "The message is certainly very simple: if someone has a conscious intention to commit an act against Estonia's critical infrastructure, it will be prevented," he said. In addition, the Estonian ministry of justice expressed its intention to change legislation so that it would be possible to "also prosecute those who damage communication and energy connections important to Estonia outside the country's territory, such as in its economic zone." Justice Minister Liisa Pakosta said: "We say that no matter where exactly the cables serving Estonia have been damaged, we will apply our criminal law. So that anyone who wants to harm our economy or disrupt the lives of our people will refrain from doing so because of the seriousness of the penalties. That is why we are making the Criminal Code more intimidating."
Whether it will be a case of puffing up the cheeks only
Earlier it became known that NATO is forming a squadron, which will include up to a dozen warships from different countries, which "will take under guard the cables running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea." The alliance headquarters informed that the operation will last until April. It is reported that in the Gulf of Finland will patrol mainly ships of Finland and Estonia. The warships of other countries will be stationed outside the Gulf - near the underwater lines of energy and information cables. The alliance believes that their presence will serve as a "deterrent" to "saboteurs.
According to Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur, negotiations are underway to ensure that even after April, the NATO alliance will continue to carry out such operations in the Baltic - on a rotational basis. "Initially, Germany will take the main responsibility. Negotiations are currently underway on whether and how Sweden and Poland can be involved," Pevkur said. In turn, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that Russia's "shadow fleet" is the biggest problem in the Baltic Sea" and that the EU and NATO are now actively looking for ways to counter it. Also, according to Orpo, Helsinki is not going to reopen the border with Russia, which was closed by the Finns at the end of 2023.
According to political scientist Maxim Reva, the essence of the plan of the Estonian and Finnish authorities is easy to understand: to declare any vessel of the "shadow fleet" as a "potential saboteur", to board it, as happened with the Eagle S, to take it to the coastal waters of Estonia or Finland and confiscate it. But as Reva believes, everything will be limited to "puffing up the cheeks" and threatening verbal statements. "Estonians can talk all they want about "contiguous zone", but there is international legislation, which clearly requires ensuring freedom of navigation in waters that are not territorial. In this case, Estonia and Finland have an obligation to ensure the free passage of ships traveling through the Gulf of Finland to Russian ports. As well as vessels leaving the ports of the Leningrad Region and moving to leave the Baltic Sea," Reva emphasized in his conversation with Izvestia.
It should be noted that the width of the neutral strip lying between Estonian and Finnish terwaters is from three to almost ten nautical miles in different places. "If ships underway clearly adhere to neutral waters, it is impossible to detain them, otherwise it would be piracy. The Baltic Fleet of Russia is capable of organizing the protection of ships coming with Russian cargoes - and it is not Estonian or Finnish "mosquito" fleets that can compete with it. I think that Helsinki and Tallinn are stirring up a fuss on purpose now in order to get on Moscow's nerves once again. I doubt very much that they will dare to launch a large-scale raid on tankers," Reva concludes.
Political scientist, editor-in-chief of Baltnews news agency Andrei Starikov told Izvestia that the scheme with Russia's use of the "shadow fleet" pisses off EU and NATO countries, as there are no opportunities to organize effective counteraction to it within the current legal framework. "That is why our opponents are now testing the limits of what is possible, looking for various non-legal methods of fighting tankers carrying Russian oil. Pressure is being exerted not only on us, but also on those countries to which these tankers are going. NATO wants to create so many obstacles and inconveniences that the countries that use the "shadow fleet" scheme will abandon it themselves. And the question here is what arguments Russia will find to force NATO countries to abandon their plans to inspect and detain "shadow fleet" tankers," Starikov said.
In his opinion, if Moscow does not take decisive measures to put the Finns and Estonians in their place, it may come to attempts to stop, inspect and arrest ships traveling not only under neutral but also under Russian flags.
- They may even become insolent enough to try to stop even Russian warships! Here we can turn to the events of recent history. Let us recall that in the summer of 2022 Lithuania intended to block the communication of the Kaliningrad region with the rest of Russia. But then Moscow found arguments - so convincing that the EU leadership itself demanded that Lithuania abandon its plans. We must assume that similar arguments will be found now," Starikov concludes.
