Reuters-Chinese Russian vessels in vicinity of Baltic Sea links damage -vessel tracking data
October 20, 2023 3 min 621 words
这则报道揭示了一个引人担忧的局势，涉及中国和俄罗斯的船只在芬兰湾附近与天然气管道和电信电缆损坏事件相关联。首先，10月8日发生了天然气管道和电信电缆损坏事件，这引发了芬兰当局对能源供应安全性的担忧。这两起事件发生时，只有两艘船在附近，分别是中国新北极熊号和俄罗斯Sevmorput号，这引发了调查。这两艘船的航迹与损坏地点吻合，引起了疑虑。 此外，芬兰当局正在调查这两艘船，以及其他可能涉及的船只，这表明事件的故意破坏性质可能不容忽视。芬兰和爱沙尼亚当局还在芬兰湾周围设立了受限制的航行区域，以确保进一步的安全。 这一事件引发了关于能源供应安全性的广泛担忧，迫使北约加强波罗的海地区的巡逻，并促使赫尔辛基通过外交渠道与莫斯科和北京联系，以就这些事件进行沟通。 这一报道强调了国际关系和地缘政治的紧张关系，以及能源供应的关键性。需要更多的调查和透明度，以解决这一问题，确保地区的稳定和安全。
A Chinese container vessel and a Russian-flagged ship investigated over damage to a gas pipeline in the Gulf of Finland were also present at the sites, and at around the time two telecoms cables sustained damage, vessel tracking data showed.
Early on Oct. 8, a gas pipeline and a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators say may have been deliberate sabotage.
On Tuesday, Sweden said a third link, connecting Stockholm to Tallinn, had been damaged at roughly the same time as the other two.
The incidents have stoked concerns about the security of energy supply in the wider Nordic region, prompted NATO to ramp up patrols in the Baltic Sea and Helsinki to contact Moscow and Beijing via diplomatic channels about the incidents.
Only two ships were present at all three sites around the approximate time when the damage occurred, according to data from MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking and maritime analytics provider.
The ships are: the NewNew Polar Bear, a Chinese container ship travelling between China and Europe via the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic, and the Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered cargo vessel transiting between Murmansk and St. Petersburg.
Finnish investigators, in charge of the pipeline investigation, are probing both ships, as well as others, they said on Tuesday.
Based on vessel tracking data, Reuters matched the ships' path with the locations where the damage occurred at all three sites.
The locations match the movements of military and service vessels deployed to investigate the incidents.
Finnish and Estonian authorities have also established restricted navigation zones around the incident sites in the Gulf of Finland.
In the first incident, which involved the Swedish-Estonian telecoms cable, the NewNew Polar Bear passed over the link at 1813 EET (1513 GMT) on Oct. 7, while the Sevmorput passed over the cable at 2008 EET, some 4 km (2.6 nautical miles) to the west of the incident site.
The cable's operator, Arelion, said the incident occurred in the "afternoon of Oct. 7". It declined to give a specific time.
In the second incident, involving the gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia, the NewNew Polar Bear passed over the infrastructure at 0120 EET on Oct. 8 (2220 GMT on Oct. 7), while the Sevmorput passed over it eight minutes earlier, at 0112 EET.
The time the NewNew Polar Bear crossed the pipeline matches the time when Norwegian seismologists registered a small seismic event in the pipeline's vicinity.
The pipeline's operators, Gasgrid and Elering, have said the gas leak occurred between 0100 and 0200 EET on Oct. 8 (2200-2300 GMT, Oct. 7).
In the third incident, on the Finland-Estonia telecoms link, the NewNew Polar Bear crossed it at 0249 EET on Oct. 8 (2349 GMT, Oct. 7), while the Sevmorput crossed it at 0226 EET the same day (2326 GMT, Oct. 7).
The cable's operator, Elisa, has declined to say when the damage occurred. The Estonian Navy said the cable was damaged about two hours after the Balticconnector incident.
NewNew Shipping, the owner and operator of the NewNew Polar Bear, declined to comment when contacted by Reuters
The Russian authority responsible for nuclear-powered vessels, Atomflot, has denied to Reuters that one of its ships had been involved. On Friday it declined to give fresh comment.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed as "rubbish" the idea that Russia damaged the Finnish-Estonia gas pipeline.