An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/7659731

HELSINKI/VILNIUS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - An investigation into the damage to the Balticonnector gas pipeline is currently focused on the role of the Chinese NewNew Polar Bear container vessel, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said on Friday.

Early on Oct. 8, a gas pipeline and a telecoms cable connecting Finland and Estonia were broken, in what Finnish investigators said may have been sabotage, though they have yet to conclude whether it was an accident or a deliberate act.

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

“The police have established in the criminal investigation that the movements of the vessel NewNew Polar Bear flying the flag of Hong Kong coincide with the time and place of the gas pipeline damage,” NBI said in a statement.

“For this reason, the investigation is now focused on the role of the said vessel,” the Finnish investigators added.

Following Finland’s NBI statement, Estonian investigators, who are also looking into the telecoms cable incidents, said they were still looking at two ships, the NewNew Polar Bear and Russia’s Sevmorput.

“We have identified that during the incidents, the vessels NewNew Polar Bear and Sevmorput were in the area. We are still investigating whether or not these vessels had anything to do with the damage,” they said in a statement to Reuters.

Only these two ships were present at all three incident sites around the approximate time when the damage occurred, according to vessel tracking data reviewed by Reuters.

  • OurToothbrushM
    27·
    1 year ago

    Sorry, I meant headline. But it is good that they acknowledge that Hong Kong is part of China when Hong Kong ships do big oopsies.

      • OurToothbrushM
        27·
        1 year ago

        Oh, there was this big “Free Hong Kong” thing that insisted that Hong Kong shouldn’t be part of China

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
          1·
          1 year ago

          I don’t think that’s what it was about

          The 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests (also known by other names) were a series of demonstrations against the Hong Kong government’s introduction of a bill to amend the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance in regard to extradition.

          • OurToothbrushM
            26·
            1 year ago

            I mean that was the pretext but if you asked most of the people supporting it they’d probably agree it was reasonable to extradite a man who killed a pregnant woman and then ran to Hong Kong.