West finds no "Russian trace" in cable damage in the Baltic Sea
The US intelligence services and Western countries have found no evidence of Russia's alleged involvement in the damage to cables in the Baltic Sea. This was reported by the Washington Post newspaper on January 19, citing sources.
"According to several representatives of American and European intelligence, the ruptures of undersea cables, which in recent months have caused concern among European security services, most likely were the result of maritime accidents," - stated in the material.
It is noted that, according to the latest versions, the damage to the cables occurred due to accidents, and not as a result of sabotage, as indicated earlier.
At the moment, investigators from the United States and representatives of six European countries have not found evidence that the ships suspected of intentionally dragging anchors along the seabed, acted purposefully or "by order" of Russia.
Earlier, on January 16, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that statements about the Russian trace in the damage of cables on the bottom of the Baltic Sea are necessary to limit oil exports from Russia, as well as navigation in the water area.
The diplomat also noted that Finland, Estonia and other European Union (EU) countries wanted to qualify the incident as sabotage and prepared as the main version about the participation of a certain "shadow fleet" of the Russian Federation.
On December 25, 2024, an emergency outage of the EstLink 2 DC cable occurred between Estonia and Finland. The Estonian electricity and gas supply network operator Elering said that the cause of the incident is not known, but the reliability of power supply to the Republic is ensured, and reserve capacities are used to compensate for the lack of electricity.
Later, Finnish police stopped the Kukapo Islands-flagged tanker Eagle S on suspicion of breaking a cable in the Baltic. As a precaution against disrupting the investigation, the Finnish police banned seven members of the tanker's crew from leaving the country, followed by the eighth.
