FRANKFURT, Germany –
Estonia’s government will hold an extraordinary meeting on Thursday as investigators try to find out what disrupted a Baltic Sea power cable carrying electricity from Finland, Estonia’s prime minister said on Thursday.
Power to Estlink-2 was cut shortly after noon on Wednesday. Officials have been nervous about undersea cables in the wake of damage to two data cables in November and to the Nord Stream gas pipeline, both of which have been called sabotage.
“Despite the holidays, many people in Estonia and Finland have been working for the past two days to identify the issue of Estlink-2 disconnection,” Prime Minister Kristen Michal said on X. “My government will hold an extraordinary meeting this afternoon. “We are in close contact with our Nordic and Baltic colleagues.”
In November, two data cables were cut, one between Finland and Germany and the other between Lithuania and Sweden. Germany’s defense minister said officials had to assume the incident was “sabotage,” but without providing evidence or saying who might have been responsible. The comment came during a speech in which he discussed Russia’s hybrid war threats.
The Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that once carried natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Authorities called it sabotage and launched criminal investigations.
The Estlink-2 cable was down for much of this year to repair damage caused by a short circuit that may have been caused by the complex positioning of the cable, ERR reported.
Estonian grid operator Elering says there is enough spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side, public broadcaster ERR said on its website.
