Along with the drone hysteria, a tanker was seized off the French coast this past week, for allegedly being involved in the drone incidents over Denmark. Now, the ship and its crew have been released, the ship continuing its travel to the Suez Canal, after the charges were dropped because the ship’s involvement in the drone affair could not be substantiated.
Similarly, the collapse of the story about Baltic Sea bottom communication cables being damaged by the shadow fleet of Russia. At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the topic dominated headlines: Ships belonging to the “Russian shadow fleet” were alleged to have deliberately damaged undersea cables. This accusation was repeated and taken up many times, despite the fact that damage to the comparatively thin cables, which run unprotected on the seabed, occurs frequently. Most cables are laid in duplicate for this very reason, and repairs can be carried out relatively quickly.
In this context, the tanker Eagle S came under the scrutiny of NATO’s Baltic Sea neighbors in January. On December 25, the Eagle S was boarded by a Finnish patrol boat; shortly before, the EastLink2 power cable had been damaged. The ship, which is owned by a company in the United Arab Emirates and sails under the flag of the Cook Islands, was detained; seven members of the crew were initially prohibited from leaving Finland. The ship was not released until the beginning of March.
The crew had stated that there had been a technical problem with the anchor, which had reportedly dragged along the sea bed and damaged cables. The defense argued that Finland did not have jurisdiction, because the cables had been damaged outside of Finnish territorial waters, and the Finnish court ruled that that was actually the case.
