SABOTAGE: Leak in the Submarine Gas Pipeline Between Finland and Estonia Was ‘Deliberate Act’ – Damage Came a Year After the Nord Stream Explosions

As Winter approaches, and a little over a year after the Nord Stream pipeline was sabotaged (by the US, according to Pulitzer-winner Seymour Hersh), a new disruption in European energy pipelines is reaching the headlines.

The Finnish government said today, October 10, that a submarine gas pipeline has been damaged and started to leak, in what very much appears to have been a deliberate act.

A telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea was also damaged.

The Balticconnector gas pipeline was shut on Sunday for leaking from a hole in the 77-km (48-mile) pipeline. Finnish operator Gasgrid stated that the damage could take months to repair.

Reuters reported:

“‘It is likely that damage to both the gas pipeline and the communication cable is the result of outside activity. The cause of the damage is not yet clear, the investigation continues in cooperation between Finland and Estonia’, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said in a statement on Tuesday.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the damage to the pipeline was “worrying”, but that Finland’s energy supply remained stable and that the damage to the telecommunications cable did not affect Finland’s overall connectivity.

“It is too early to draw conclusions on who or what caused the damage,” Orpo told a press conference.”

Finnish telecommunications operator Elisa said that the distance from the communication cable to the Balticconnector pipeline was ‘significant.’

The damage to the gas pipeline took place in Finnish waters, while the telecoms cable breach was in Estonian waters.

The Finnish Bureau of Investigation is investigating the external damage to the pipeline.

“‘We are still verifying if the damage is caused deliberately or accidentally’, the bureau said, though it added that the size of the damage was such that it indicated deliberate action.”

To inflict this kind of damage to the pipeline would require ‘special knowledge’, was not an act that could have been done by an ordinary person.

This new disruption comes after the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions, which authorities have said were deliberate acts of sabotage.

Unsurprisingly, Finnish media has government sources saying Russian sabotage was suspected.

The Guardian reported:

“Petteri Orpo, the Finnish prime minister, told a press conference in Helsinki that a preliminary assessment suggested that ‘the observed damage could not have been caused by normal use of the pipeline or by pressure fluctuations’.

Asked directly about the likelihood of Russian involvement, Orpo said he did not want to speculate on potential perpetrators before the investigation was complete. ‘It’s important … not to jump to conclusions at this stage’, he said.”

NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will share information about the destruction of the underwater infrastructure and to ‘support its allies’.

“The Finnish daily Iltalehti cited unnamed intelligence sources as saying the government ‘considered it possible that Russia had aimed a sabotage attack’.”

Gas markets across Europe surged to their highest price in six months after news of the damage emerged, with UK gas market prices jumping by almost 15% and the benchmark price for European gas climbing to the highest since April.