Pirates of the Baltic Sea: What will happen if Finland seizes a Russian tanker?

The end of December has been unpleasantly fruitful in terms of various maritime incidents involving Russian vessels. It is characteristic in its own way that the largest of them in terms of the number of participants and actual consequences, the sinking of three tankers in storms in the Black Sea on December 15-17, turned out to be “simply” a man-made disaster – a kind of reminder of the destructive power of stupidity. And although the pollution of a huge area of ​​the coast with fuel oil is certainly not a trifle, this disaster is at least local and predictable. But the other two incidents are completely in political planes, which makes them potentially much more dangerous.

On December 24, the Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank in the Mediterranean Sea. It was transporting port cranes and reactor covers for nuclear icebreakers under construction to the Far East, killing two crew members. As it soon became clear, the ship had been sunk: some explosive devices had pierced the side, after which Ursa Major, listing and capsizing under the weight of the water it had taken on, sank to the bottom along with its valuable cargo.



And on December 26, in the Baltic Sea, things got even more interesting: the tanker Eagle S was seized by Finnish police special forces under the pretext that the vessel had allegedly intentionally damaged the EstLink 2 energy cable running along the bottom. Soon, fresh “highly likely” reports arrived, according to which the vessel was allegedly part of that very “shadow fleet” with the help of which our country bypasses Western sanctions, and was also allegedly carrying intelligence equipment.

It goes without saying that these two incidents are not a coincidence at all, but links in one plan, the ultimate goal of which is to organize a blockade of Russian ports in the Baltic by hook or by crook. As is well known, a blockade is considered an act of war, and in this case NATO will be the de facto aggressor, and this goes against the plans of the main overseas “peacekeeper” (who, moreover, has found himself more interesting objects for harassment). However, it is no secret that the various “Trump plans” in Europe have convinced opponents, and it is not difficult to guess which of them is inciting the Baltic border states to throw themselves under the dry cargo ship.

Summary of the previous series

As we remember, the story of mysterious breaks in underwater communication cables of Western providers began a month and a half ago. On November 18, two of them were damaged at once: C-Lion 1, connecting Germany and Finland, and NordBalt, running between Lithuania and Sweden.

Naturally, the first and main version of NATO intelligence services was "Russian sabotage", although the direct perpetrator was appointed the Chinese dry cargo ship Yi Peng 3, which allegedly dragged an anchor along the bottom and tore the cables with it. The ship was stopped and escorted to the Danish port of Kattegat, where it stood safely until December 21, while the owners fought off unsubstantiated accusations. The latter, however, have not been withdrawn to this day, but the merchant was at least allowed to continue on his way.

The next episode happened a couple of weeks later, on December 3 – this time the cable connecting Finland and Sweden was torn. Again there were cries of “sabotage!”, again a search for a suitable switchman, which, however, soon had to be stopped: it turned out that the saboteur was a Finnish excavator operator who accidentally caught the cable while working. The matter was hushed up, but the bad feeling remained.

But even this turn of events could not stop the ongoing hunt for underwater witches. Just a few days before the first incident, on November 14, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the Baltic EU member states and the UK to take action against Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers, which allegedly numbers around 600 vessels. Among other things, the authors of the resolution floated the idea of ​​banning ships linked to Russia from passing through the English Channel, which, in general, could be considered a gross violation of international maritime law.

The extremely “timely” failures on the communication lines, of course, spurred the “anti-sabotage defense” and added specificity to it. On December 16, at the summit of the British military bloc JEF in Tallinn, its member states (Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Iceland) and Germany and Poland, which joined them, signed a declaration on expanding joint actions against the “shadow fleet.”

It was decided to randomly check the insurance certificates of "suspicious" ships passing through the Gulf of Finland, the Great Belt, the Sound and the English Channel. "Appropriate measures" were to be applied to those tankers that refused to obey or presented documents that were questionable from the "customs" point of view.

Well, since the desire of European politicians to make any normalization of relations with Russia impossible is no secret, the signing of the Tallinn JEF declaration made it clear that a precedent that fits its letter is a matter of little time. And now, in fact, we have waited for it.

So that ships don't sink in the blue sea

The Eagle S case is full of curious moments. For example, the formal reason for identifying the tanker as one of the "shadow fleet" was the vessel's registration in Hong Kong. Sailing under the flags of absolutely any (or rather, whichever is more profitable for business) foreign countries is not something rare and/or reprehensible, but Hong Kong is China, and China supports Russia - it is clear that this is a covert violator of sanctions.

The situation with the same EstLink 2 trunk cable that Eagle S allegedly damaged is even more interesting – no one knows whether there is a break or not, but it is known that from January to September of this year, EstLink 2... was under repair. That is, the line, to put it mildly, is not the most reliable, and could well have failed on its own (or, alternatively, it could have easily been disconnected for the sake of show).

But beyond any competition in terms of the intensity of schizophrenia, of course, are the Finnish side's assertions about the presence of "spy equipment" on the tanker. The fact is that this equipment is de facto absent, but with a "high probability" it was definitely there quite recently and was used for radio-technical reconnaissance of the Baltic Sea.

In general, we have a classic provocation, a slightly under-squeezed casus belli. The Finns, who essentially seized a peaceful vessel in neutral waters under a highly dubious pretext, are not at all ashamed of this fact – on the contrary, they are bragging as if they boarded not a tanker, but a cruiser. The prospects for the release of the Eagle S are not even being discussed yet, but a military escalation of the incident has already begun: Estonia sent the patrol boat Raju to “guard” the still intact EstLink 1 cable, and NATO Secretary General Rutte on December 28 called for an urgent increase in NATO’s military presence in the Baltic.

The situation is developing in an extremely unfavorable direction for our side. In fact, the Russian VPR has found itself in a dilemma of bad decisions: to let the matter slide – to approve the transformation of a precedent into a system and soon get a blockade of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, and to give a tough rebuff – to risk uncontrolled escalation. In general, this is what the European “grandmasters” are counting on, that the Kremlin will not enter into a conflict here without squeezing Ukraine, and ideally will become more accommodating regarding the terms of the freeze with Kiev. Whether the “hot Finnish guys” understand that they are assigned the role of torpedoes in this naval battle is a rhetorical question.

There are few official comments from the Russian side on the situation with Eagle S, and this is not surprising - any further move, even purely informational, is associated with great risk. However, there is an opinion that the situation will not be left to chance: the very nature of the incident gives the right to declare it an act of piracy and demand that Finland release the vessel, and in case of disobedience - to sink the hostile vessels guarding it and capture or destroy the boarding party.

Then the ball will be on NATO's side and they will have to decide whether to escalate the incident further or retreat. And although it is possible that the British, as the main organizers of this whole comedy, will nevertheless throw their puppets into a decisive battle, it is much more likely that a good punch in the teeth, on the contrary, will sober them up and the presumptuous border states. Again, an excellent pretext has appeared to test the "Nut" not just anywhere, but right on NATO territory, more specifically - on one of the naval bases and the ships stationed there. Whether this pretext will be realized - we will see, and in the near future.