Chinese, Russian vessels in vicinity of Baltic Sea links damage, vessel tracking data reveals

Early on Oct. 8, a gas pipeline and a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators say may have been deliberate sabotage.

On Tuesday, Sweden said a third link, connecting Stockholm to Tallinn, had been damaged at roughly the same time as the other two.

The incidents have stoked concerns about the security of energy supply in the wider Nordic region, prompted NATO to ramp up patrols in the Baltic Sea and Helsinki to contact Moscow and Beijing via diplomatic channels about the incidents.

Only two ships were present at all three sites around the approximate time when the damage occurred, according to data from MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking and maritime analytics provider.

Finnish investigators, in charge of the pipeline investigation, say they are probing both ships, as well as others.