Investigation Underway After Baltic Sea Cable Outage

An outage occurred on the Estlink 2 undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia on Christmas Day, prompting investigations into potential sabotage. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo confirmed that the outage did not impact electricity supplies in Finland, but reduced the power transmission capacity between the two countries from 1,106 MW to 358 MW. The incident follows a series of similar disruptions in the Baltic Sea, raising suspicions of sabotage linked to heightened tensions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Finnish electricity operator Fingrid stated that about 658 MW was being transmitted to Estonia when the outage occurred, with authorities investigating various possible causes, including human intervention. The cable had previously been out of service for repairs earlier in the year, and officials remain vigilant about the security of undersea infrastructure in the region. The investigation is ongoing as authorities aim to determine the exact cause of the outage.