Operations Other

On 3 October 2025, the Helsinki District Court rendered its judgment in the criminal case against the captain and two senior officers of the Eagle S, dismissing all charges in connection with the December 2024 severing of the EstLink 2 power cable and four data cables in the Gulf of Finland, and ordering the Finnish State to bear the legal costs. The court confirmed that the resulting economic losses — tens of millions of euros — met the statutory thresholds for aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with communications under the Finnish Criminal Code, and that the events constituted offences which would in principle fall under Finnish jurisdiction. However, it ruled that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) restricted that jurisdiction: Article 97(1) classifies the conduct as an "incident of navigation" subject to exclusive flag-state and crew-nationality jurisdiction, and Article 113 — as implemented domestically through the Finnish Act on the Protection of Certain Underwater Cables — limits extraterritorial criminal application to Finnish vessels, citizens and corporate entities. The court rejected the prosecution's argument that Article 97 does not extend to intentional crimes. The ruling left Fingrid and Elering reliant on civil compensation proceedings against the ship's owner Caravella LLC-FZ to recover the EstLink 2 repair costs (estimated at €50–60 million), and the resulting precedent is regarded by commentators as a major blow to the criminal-law protection of subsea infrastructure in the EEZ.