An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.
Early on Oct. 8, a gas pipeline and a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators said might have been sabotage, although they have yet to conclude whether it was an accident or a deliberate act.
On Tuesday, Sweden said that a third link, connecting Stockholm to Tallinn, had been damaged at about the same time as the other two.
Photo: Estonian Navy / handout via Reuters
“The police have established in the criminal investigation that the movements of the vessel NewNew Polar Bear flying the flag of Hong Kong coincide with the time and place of the gas pipeline damage,” the NBI said in a statement.
“For this reason, the investigation is now focused on the role of the said vessel,” the Finnish investigators added.
Following the NBI statement, Estonian investigators, who are also looking into the telecoms cable incidents, said they were still looking at two ships, the NewNew Polar Bear and Russia’s Sevmorput.
“We have identified that during the incidents, the vessels NewNew Polar Bear and Sevmorput were in the area. We are still investigating whether or not these vessels had anything to do with the damage,” they said in a statement.
Only these two ships were present at all three incident sites around the approximate time when the damage occurred, vessel tracking data reviewed by Reuters showed.
Finland’s NBI said that “a heavy object” was found on the seabed near the pipeline damage and were investigating whether this was linked to the incident.
“The investigation has confirmed that the damage has been caused by an external mechanical force, and based on current knowledge there is no reason to believe the damage has been caused by an explosion,” NBI Detective Superintendent Risto Lohi said in the statement.
A recently formed “huge clump of soil” deep in the clay seabed was believed to contain an extremely heavy object, and was the subject of investigation, the bureau said.
“Attempts will be made to lift the object from the sea for technical examination,” Lohi said.
The incidents have stoked concerns about the security of energy supplies in the wider Nordic region and prompted the NATO military alliance to ramp up patrols in the Baltic Sea.
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