Finland has 12 minutes to prevent a Russian-linked oil tanker from causing “more serious” damage to its undersea cables, the country’s president said

• Finland says a Russian-linked oil tanker came close to causing serious damage to its undersea cables.

• The company’s president said officials intervened for about 12 minutes before the damage “became more serious.”

• The tanker has been accused of being part of a Russian “shadow fleet” campaign to damage European infrastructure.

Finland intercepted the crew of a Russian-linked oil tanker just minutes before it caused catastrophic damage to an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea, President Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday.

“If it had lasted another 12 minutes, the carnage would have been much worse than the four basic cables that were there,” Stuab told reporters at a Baltic-themed NATO summit in Helsinki this week.

The tanker, the Eagle S, was seized in late December as Finland investigated recent damage to its Estlink-2 power line, one of two vital power cables in the Baltic Sea.

Four data lines were also cut.

Finnish investigators accuse the crew of the Eagle S of trying to damage the cable by dragging the anchor along the seafloor for miles.

Finnish investigation chief Risto Lohi told Reuters on Tuesday that the Eagle S might have tried to sabotage another cable, Estlink-1, if police had not boarded the ship.

“Other cables or pipelines related to our critical underwater infrastructure will be damaged almost immediately,” said Director of Finland’s National Investigation Agency, Lohi.

On Tuesday, Stuab said Finland’s safety procedures for protecting cables start with the private companies that oversee them. If the cable is cut, the company alerts authorities, who then try to locate possible ships around the damaged site.

“Once that happens, you can identify the ship and contact the ship. Fourth, you can stop the ship,” Stubb said.

Stuab added that Finnish authorities would force the ship into Finnish waters and officials could then legally board it.

Now that process will change. NATO’s European member states announced at the summit that they will launch a new program called “Baltic Sentinel” to collectively patrol near Baltic Sea infrastructure.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the summit that the surveillance program involves frigates, seaplanes and “a small swarm of naval drones”.

The investigation into Eagle S is of particular importance to the EU because of years of suspicion that Russia has been deliberately trying to covertly sabotage Western undersea infrastructure. Other cables, such as two fiber optic data cables running between Finland and Germany, were cut last year.

Although the Eagle S is registered in the Cook Islands, European officials say it has links to Russia because it loaded 35,000 tons of unleaded gasoline at a Russian port.

They accuse the ship of being part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a network of vessels whose owners are registered outside Russia and actually carry sanctioned Russian oil.

Russia denies any involvement in such sabotage. Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment outside regular business hours.

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