The acknowledgement emerged in reporting by the South China Morning Post this week, but it won’t put an end to suspicions about cable sabotage.
Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur suggested at the time that the damage to the pipeline and communications cable was likely deliberate. Finnish authorities, who recovered the anchor from the Chinese vessel that had dragged across the pipe and cable, deemed it a “deliberate external act” but were powerless to arrest the ship’s master after the vessel subsequently sailed to Russian ports and then into international waters.
