Old tankers are damaging crucial subsea cables using their anchors. Analysts say it's likely deliberate.

On Christmas Day, authorities in Estonia and Finland noted the sudden interruption of the Estlink 2 undersea electricity cable linking their two nations - just as ship tracking data showed the Cook Islands-registered "Eagle S" passing outbound from Russia’s Baltic coast en route to Egypt.

and flagged in places like Gabon or the Cook Islands. Some of the vessels are owned by the Russian state Sovcomflot shipping company. Their role is to help Russia’s oil exporters elude the $60 per barrel price cap imposed by Ukraine’s allies.

A spate of alleged sabotage operations against undersea cables in the Baltic Sea has raised the prospect of a dangerous 2025 in NATO's northern theater.

In total, the United States is sanctioning 183 oil-carrying vessels, Russian oil traders and oilfield providers, the two Russian oil majors and more than two dozen of their subsidiaries, according to the Treasury Department.

Ukrainian officials welcomed Donald Trump ’s threat to sanction Russia harder, suggesting punitive measures against Russian oil and gas could run down Vladimir Putin ’s war machinery. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Russia is believed to be behind dozens of hybrid attacks, like arson or sabotage, on NATO soil since the Ukraine war started.

"Had it continued for another 12 minutes, the carnage would have been much worse than the four basic cables that were there," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said.

Still, the official announcement declined to use the word war to characterize Moscow’s activities outside Ukraine. Instead, the EU condemned Russians’ “destabilising” and “malicious actions.” The inability to describe acts of war as acts of war is part of a culture of distortion and denial regarding the subject of state-sponsored violence.

Explore how Russia's shadow fleet of tankers is circumventing Western sanctions, ensuring continued oil revenue despite international efforts.

The incident, European officials said at the time, was just another example of Russia's malevolent behaviour in the Baltic, where it has allegedly been engaged in a quiet war of provocation against NATO countries by using its so-called shadow fleet of tankers to clip data and power cables and its air force to violate NATO airspace.

A Finnish court ordered the seizure of an oil tanker suspected of damaging key telecommunications and power cables in the Baltic Sea, the Finnish public broadcaster Yle reported Monday. The vessel, Eagle S,