Countries in the region have been on alert following a string of incidents involving undersea cables and gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea since 2022.
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00:00The EU foreign policy chief has said the bloc is preparing sanctions on what it calls Russia's
00:07shadow fleet after an undersea power cable in the Baltic Sea was damaged.
00:12Kaya Kalas posted the statement from the EU Commission on X saying that the vessels with
00:17obscure ownership threaten security and the environment while funding Russia's war budget.
00:23Kalas also said the EU was strengthening efforts to protect undersea cables, adding that there
00:29was no risk to regional power supplies.
00:32That comes after Finnish authorities detained a Russian ship as part of an investigation
00:37into damage to the Estlink 2 power cable.
00:40It carries electricity from Finland to Estonia across the Baltic Sea and went down on Wednesday.
00:59Countries in the region have been on alert following a string of incidents involving
01:18undersea cables and gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea since 2022.
01:23Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany and the other between Lithuania
01:28and Sweden, were severed in November.
01:31Last year, a pipeline carrying gas from Estonia to Finland was closed due to an apparent leak,
01:37which officials blamed on external activity.
01:40And the Nord Stream pipelines that once brought natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged
01:45by underwater explosions in September 2022.