Finns deal with sabotage vessel and cable repair, which will be expensive

Preparatory work has begun in the Gulf of Finland to repair the Elisa submarine communication cable, which was damaged on December 25 last year.

The Finnish submarine cable repair vessel Telepaatti is repairing the Elisa and Citic Telecom communication cables. Citic previously announced that their cable would be repaired immediately after the Elisa cable is repaired, Yle reports.

In addition, experts continue to study the technical details of repairing the Estlink 2 power cable, which was damaged on the same day.

The communication lines between Estonia and Finland were damaged by the Russian shadow fleet tanker Eagle S. Experts say that restoring, for example, the Estlink 2 power cable will take a long time and be expensive.

According to current estimates, the repair work will last seven months and cost tens of millions of euros, reports ERR with reference to Delfi.

The repair of Estlink 2 is technically extremely complex: first, the damaged section of the cable on the seabed must be cut and the ends lifted aboard the ship. Then a new intermediate segment must be connected to the ends of the cable. – Each cable core must be manually connected and a reliable layer of insulation must be applied to protect against high voltage.

Meanwhile, the Transport and Communications Agency Traficom will conduct a detailed inspection of the tanker Eagle S on Thursday, January 2. According to Yle, the supervisory authority intends to assess the vessel's compliance with international conventions. According to Traficom, the inspection of the vessel Eagle S is a routine procedure and may take several days.

Before this, the supervisory authority clarified that the vessel may be required to correct the deficiencies and defects found. In the event of serious damage, Traficom may suspend the operation of the vessel until the defects are eliminated.