🇫🇮🇪🇪 💥SUSPECTED SABOTAGE DAMAGES GAS PIPELINE BETWEEN FINLAND AND ESTONIA💥
A suspected explosion on Sunday led authorities to shut down the Finland-Estonia Baltic-Connector Gas Pipeline after recording a sudden drop of pressure.
The Baltic-Connector, a natural gas pipeline, connects Finland and Estonia's gas grids together. The pipeline provides Finland with access to natural gas piped from the Incukalns underground gas storage facility located in Latvia.
Petteri Orpo, the current Finnish Prime Minister said Tuesday that the source of the leak had, in fact, been found and was now being investigated by both countries but said the cause of the explosion was not yet clear.
Damage to a telecoms cable was also foind in a separate location from the damage to the pipeline, occurring along two points of Finland's Exclusive Economic Zone.
On Sunday, Norsar, Norway's seismological institute said it had detected a "probable explosion" of a magnitude 1.0 along the Baltic coast at approximately 01:20, a far smaller magnitude explosion than that recorded in the Nordstream pipeline bombings.
"The discovered damage could not have been caused by normal use of the pipeline or pressure fluctuations," Mr Orpo told a press conference Tuesday. The Finnish authorities have since ruled out the possibility that the seismic activity was naturally caused, indicating they believe it might have been deliberate and caused by "external activity."
Of course, European and NATO leadership are already turning their sights on Russia and their arch-nemesis, Russian President Vladimir Putin with one Finnish source telling the BBC, "Frankly we were expecting something like this sooner."
Authorities in Helsinki however, are remaining relatively quiet about their suspicions for now, avoiding putting the blame on Moscow too publicly in case they come up empty after a intensive investigation.
Although the pipeline is Finland's only direct link to the European Union's wider gas network, Prime Minister Orpo insists there are enough alternative sources for Finland to ensure its energy security.
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