Oil tanker Eagle S anchored near the Kilpilahti port in Porvoo, on the Gulf of Finland January 7, 2025. Lehtikuva/Antti Aimo-Koivisto via REUTERS
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Finnish police said on Tuesday they had recovered a lost anchor from the seabed as part of an investigation of suspected sabotage against power and internet cables in the Baltic Sea.
Finland last month seized the Eagle S tanker carrying Russian oil on suspicion that the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecoms cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.
"The location where the anchor was found is along the route of the Eagle S ... towards the western end of the drag trace found on the seabed," Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said in a statement.
A Finnish lawyer representing United Arab Emirates-based Caravella LLC FZ which owns the Eagle S, has said Finland hijacked the vessel at sea and should release it, a request that was denied by a court on Friday.
The company's lawyer and Caravella LLC FZ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Photos of the Eagle S taken since the incident show the vessel is missing its port side anchor.
Baltic Sea nations are on high alert after a string of power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The NATO military alliance has said it will boost its presence in the region.
The anchor was recovered from the seabed with the help of Finland's border guard and defence forces as well as the Swedish navy, the police said.
"It will contribute to the progress of the criminal investigation, and it is now subject to forensic analysis," NBI Detective Superintendent Risto Lohi said in the statement.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen and Louise Rasmussen; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
