The captain and two officers of the oil tanker Eagle S told a Helsinki court on Monday that technical faults, rather than sabotage, caused the vessel to sever five undersea power and telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea last December.
Prosecutors allege the ship deliberately dragged its 11,000-kg anchor along the seabed, cutting the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia and four internet cables. NATO forces had gone on high alert after the incident, which occurred amid a series of suspicious Baltic outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
The defendants—Georgian captain Davit Vadatchkoria, Georgian first officer, and Indian second officer Santosh Kumar Chuarasia—pleaded not guilty. They said the anchor dropped due to mechanical failure and bad weather. Chuarasia described the incident as “a normal marine accident, not any sabotage.”
State prosecutor Heidi Nummela argued that, even if unintentional, the failure of all anchor backstops shows gross negligence. Finnish prosecutors are seeking 2.5 years in prison for aggravated criminal mischief and interference with telecommunications, while the defense rejects claims for tens of millions of euros in damages.
During the court hearing, prosecutors highlighted that the tanker continued sailing for hours after the first cable cut and falsely reported to Finnish authorities that the anchor was secured. Defense lawyers said the crew had no reason to believe the anchor had sunk, citing instructions from the ship’s mechanical engineer.
The case comes amid heightened scrutiny of undersea infrastructure. Last week, a Ukrainian national was arrested in connection with the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions, widely considered acts of sabotage by both Moscow and Western authorities.
