Disruptions reported in work of 3 communication cables between Estonia, Finland

TALLINN - Estonian companies Elisa Eesti AS and CITIC Telecom CPC notified the Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) on Wednesday evening about outages in three submarine communication cables between Estonia and Finland.

Earlier, it was reported that the EstLink 2 electricity cable linking Estonia and Finland stopped working on Wednesday.

Two communications cables belonging to the Elisa group have been disrupted and one communications cable belonging to CITIC Telecom has also been damaged. The cause of the disruptions is currently unknown, but the cable owners are working to repair them and there is no impact on end users.

According to communications companies providing communication services via the cables, the outages will not have a noticeable impact on end users, and all services and communications between Estonia and Finland are operational.

Estonia's external connections are duplicated multiple times, meaning that if submarine cables break, it is possible to use alternative functioning submarine cables or land cables going to Latvia to ensure cross-border internet connection and the functioning of various services.

Finnish media previously reported that the Hong Kong-flagged Xin Xin Tiang 2 was in the vicinity of EstLink 2 when it stopped operating. Later, it was reported that a Russian shadow fleet vessel, the Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S, was also in the vicinity.

Following the latest incidents in the Gulf of Finland, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics has been posting on social media that the damage to the submarine cables between Finland and Estonia is unlikely to have been an accident.

"The protection of critical maritime infrastructure must be one of the key NATO and regional tasks in the Baltic Sea," Rinkevics stressed.