Nato steps up efforts to protect cables in Baltic Sea
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Rachel Wright and at 14 Hours GMT on Friday the 27th of December, these are our main stories. NATO steps up efforts to protect cables in the Baltic Sea after a power cable is cut. Russia is accused of sabotage but denies any involvement. Chaos in South Korea as the acting president is impeached after just two weeks in the job. And Israel orders staff and patients out from one of the last remaining hospitals in northern Gaza. Also in this podcast, a convoy of food arrives in the south of Sudan's capital for the first time.
There were tears, tears of laughter and joy and tears of a lot of effort and exhaustion. It was quite a moment, I mean, for everyone. It was big.
And NASA says its solar probe has made history. NATO has said it will increase its naval presence in the Baltic after what officials suspect was Russian sabotage of an undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia. The Estlink-2 cable stopped working on Christmas Day. Now the Estonian Navy has launched an operation to protect the remaining working cable, which supplies the country with power from Finland. Finland's President Alexander Stubb spoke about the incident at a news conference.
Our message is quite clear. We've got the situation under control and we have to continue work together, vigilantly, to make sure that our critical infrastructure is not damaged by outsiders. It's too soon to draw conclusions yet why this happened, we know who did it.
Our Europe regional editor Paul Moss told me more.
The Estlink 2 cable, as it's called, stopped working on Christmas Day and it didn't really require a major investigation to guess why this happened because at exactly the same time it stopped, a ship passed overhead, slowing down as it did so. This was the Eagle S. registered to the Cook Islands in the Pacific. But Finland believes it was controlled by Russia. They boarded the ship and they found evidence that the anchor had been dragged along the seabed to sever the cable. And you could have forgiven them for having a sense of deja vu because in November, a communications cable just off Sweden was also severed just as a Chinese ship passed overhead and slowed down. Now, we should say that undersea cables do sometimes malfunction.
But these two are just the latest in an increasing number, way too many, many think to be a coincidence.
And what are the Estonian Navy and NATO going to do about it?
Well, they're just launching patrols, they say, to have ships to protect the remaining cable, the Estlink-1. The Estonian Defence Minister, Hanno Pevko, has described this as critical marine infrastructure. And you can see why the two cables, S-Link 1 and 2, carry electricity from Finland. If the S-Link 1 was also cut, well, you know, they could carry on. They would still have electricity in Estonia, but the price would rise. And Mr. Pevko called for other NATO countries to help protect the cables. As you say, this looks like it's going to happen. NATO has said within the last hour. It will step up patrols in the Baltic. This sounds like it's becoming a bit of a military matter. And I don't suppose really we should be surprised.
I mean, if a Russian aeroplane dropped a bomb on a NATO member states power station, we would see that as a direct attack. It is not particularly different, though less violent, perhaps, if it uses a ship to cut a power supply. This is allegedly a direct physical attack by Russia on a NATO country's infrastructure, and it follows what seems to have been a similar Chinese one.
So what have the Russians said about this incident?
Well, you know, I think Russia's been rather busy the last 24 hours denying that it was responsible for shooting down an Azerbaijani plane. Hasn't had much time to deny severing a cable. But the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday brushed off a question about this, said it had nothing to do with Russia.
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Speakers
21 identified
Rachel Wright 6 min
Paul Moss 3 min
Dua Tarek 2 min
Jean McKenzie 2 min
Jonathan Beale 2 min
Pallab Ghosh 2 min
Navin Singh Khadka 2 min
Michaela Kufner 2 min
Derek Rahill 1 min
BBC Reporter 1 min
Joe Tidy 1 min
James Menendez 1 min
Josh Hartnett
Noam Glukhovsky
Alexander Stubb
Landon Harris
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Shelley Lotan
Protestor
Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Unknown Speaker
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