OSLO: Finnish authorities said on Saturday they are moving an impounded tanker closer to port after boarding the vessel carrying Russian oil earlier this week on suspicion it had damaged an undersea power line and four telecoms cables.
Baltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and NATO said on Friday it would boost its presence in the region.
The Cook Islands-registered ship, named by authorities as the Eagle S, was boarded on Thursday by a Finnish coast guard crew that took command and sailed the vessel to Finnish waters, a coast guard official said.
Finnish police believe the Eagle S may have caused the damage to undersea cables the previous day by dragging its anchor along the seabed.
“The police begin an operation to transfer the Eagle S tanker from the Gulf of Finland to Svartbeck, an inner anchorage near the port of Kilpilahti,” the Helsinki police department said in a statement on Saturday.
This would be a better place to carry out investigations, it added.
Finland’s customs service believes the ship is part of a “shadow fleet” of aging tankers being used to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.
The Kremlin said on Friday Finland’s seizure of the ship was of little concern to it. In the past, Russia has denied involvement in any of the Baltic infrastructure incidents.
Finland moves tanker suspected of undersea cable damage closer to port
https://arab.news/c3zeg
Finland moves tanker suspected of undersea cable damage closer to port
- BBaltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022
Hungary says it will block a key EU loan to Ukraine until Russian oil shipments resume
- Szijjártó said: “As long as Ukraine blocks the resumption of oil supplies to Hungary, Hungary will block European Union decisions that are important and favorable for Ukraine”
- Hungary’s decision to block the key funding came two days after it suspended diesel shipments
BUDAPEST: Hungary will block a planned 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) European Union loan to Ukraine until the flow of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline resumes, Hungary’s foreign minister said.
Russian oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia have been interrupted since Jan. 27 after what Ukrainian officials said was a Russian drone attack damaged the Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian crude across Ukrainian territory and into Central Europe.
Hungary and Slovakia, which have both received a temporary exemption from an EU policy prohibiting imports of Russian oil, have accused Ukraine — without providing evidence — of deliberately holding up supplies. Both countries ceased shipping diesel to Ukraine this week over the interruption in oil flows .
In a video posted on social media Friday evening, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó accused Ukraine of “blackmailing” Hungary by failing to restart shipments. He said his government would block a massive interest-free loan the EU approved in December to help Kyiv to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
“We will not give in to this blackmail. We do not support Ukraine’s war, we will not pay for it,” Szijjártó said. “As long as Ukraine blocks the resumption of oil supplies to Hungary, Hungary will block European Union decisions that are important and favorable for Ukraine.”
Hungary’s decision to block the key funding came two days after it suspended diesel shipments to its embattled neighbor and only days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Nearly every country in Europe has significantly reduced or entirely ceased Russian energy imports since Moscow launched its war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Yet Hungary and Slovakia — both EU and NATO members — have maintained and even increased supplies of Russian oil and gas.
Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long argued Russian fossil fuels are indispensable for its economy and that switching to energy sourced from elsewhere would cause an immediate economic collapse — an argument some experts dispute.
Widely seen as the Kremlin’s biggest advocate in the EU, Orbán has vigorously opposed the bloc’s efforts to sanction Moscow over its invasion, and blasted attempts to hit Russia’s energy revenues that help finance the war. His government has frequently threatened to veto EU efforts to assist Ukraine.
On Saturday, Slovakia’s populist Prime minister Robert Fico said his country will stop providing emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine if oil is not flowing through the Druzhba by Monday. Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said earlier this week that Hungary, too, was exploring the possibility of cutting off its electricity supplies to Ukraine.
Not all of the EU’s 27 countries agreed to take part in the 90-billion-euro loan package for Kyiv. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic opposed the plan, but a deal was reached in which they did not block the loan and were promised protection from any financial fallout.
