For months, incidents involving damaged undersea cables in the Baltic Sea were presented primarily as possible acts of Russian sabotage. The latest findings from Finland’s internal security and counterintelligence service, Supo, now suggest that such a scenario is not supported by the available evidence. Increasingly, it appears that at least some of these events may have been accidental rather than part of a coordinated Kremlin operation.
Supo chief Juha Martelius stressed that Finnish services do not believe the recent incidents were the result of deliberate action by the Russian state. According to him, intelligence services in other countries are also becoming more inclined toward similar conclusions. This marks an important shift from the dominant public narrative so far, in which damage to energy, communications, and other transmission infrastructure in the Gulf of Finland was almost automatically linked to Russian sabotage.
Suspicion toward Russia stemmed mainly from the fact that in several cases the incidents were connected to vessels from the so-called shadow fleet, which Moscow uses to circumvent sanctions and transport raw materials. Reports suggested that some of these ships may have dragged anchors along the seabed for many kilometers, damaging infrastructure in the process. The problem, however, is that despite mounting accusations, no clear evidence has ever been presented proving that this was a planned action directed by the Russian state.
In its latest report, Supo notes that damage to cables caused by ship anchors is not a new phenomenon. Such incidents had occurred regularly before, but in the past they did not attract the same level of public attention. According to the Finnish analysis, these events are more common during the autumn and winter seasons, when weather conditions in northern waters are more difficult and the risk of navigational errors increases.
The growing density of maritime traffic in the Baltic is also a factor. More and more vessels from different countries now operate in the region, and not all of their crews are sufficiently accustomed to navigating in the demanding conditions of the North. At the same time, the number of cables and other elements of critical infrastructure laid on the seabed of the relatively shallow Baltic Sea has increased significantly in recent years. This makes the likelihood of accidental damage greater than it used to be.
The Finnish intelligence service does not deny that Russia has a long tradition of sabotage activities. However, the report emphasizes that in the case of the Baltic, Moscow may have little interest in causing this kind of disruption. The Baltic route remains crucial for Russian oil exports, which continue to feed the Kremlin’s budget and help finance the war against Ukraine. From that perspective, destabilizing maritime traffic in the region could also harm Russia’s own economic interests.
Supo’s conclusions therefore suggest that the public debate over the security of Baltic infrastructure may in recent months have moved too quickly toward political accusations before hard evidence emerged. The Finnish analysis is a reminder that while the threat posed by Russia remains real in many areas, not every incident in the region must necessarily be the result of a deliberate hybrid operation. In practice, this means there is a need for greater caution in making assessments and for distinguishing justified concerns from speculation.
The issue of damaged cables in the Baltic remains important for the security of the entire region. However, the latest position of Finnish counterintelligence shows that there is currently no basis for stating with certainty that Russia was responsible for these incidents. From the perspective of the Baltic and Nordic states, this means continuing to strengthen the protection of critical infrastructure, but also conducting investigations on the basis of facts rather than political assumptions.
