"Half-truth" and "complete nonsense". Criticism of the reports about Russia's alleged non-involvement in the cable cuts

The Finnish media are publishing responses to an article by the American newspaper "The Washington Post", which on Sunday, January 19, wrote, citing high-ranking representatives of the US and EU countries, that the damage to submarine cables in the Baltic Sea in the past few months "was most likely the result of accidents, and not the result of deliberate Russian sabotage."

"We see here false news, half-truths, which have a significant impact on our European information environment, undermining joint projects of NATO and the European Union, as well as trust in them," said Jukka Savolainen, a former commander of the Western Finnish Coast Guard.

The true half of the Washington Post article is the fact that so far no one really claims definitively that it was Russia that ordered the crew of the Eagle S vessel, which was recently detained by the Finnish Coast Guard, to try to anchor the Estlink 2 cable used to transmit electricity between Finland and Estonia.

But the claims of the American newspaper that representatives of the intelligence services of the EU countries and the United States have already concluded that Moscow is not involved in this and other similar incidents - is not true.

Russia's guilt in sabotage is difficult to prove using the mechanisms of criminal investigation under the rule of law, reminds Savolainen. "Then the captain of the ship would have to say that he received instructions from the Russians and did it. There will be no evidence without a confession of guilt or some intelligence."

According to him, it is "always easy to use when you want to deliberately distort information." But Savolainen also called it "pointless" to find out whether the Washington Post article was the result of journalists falling victim to Russian disinformation.

Doubts about Russia's alleged non-involvement were also expressed in an interview with the Finnish edition of Yle and the director of investigations of the Central Criminal Police of Finland (PKK), Commissioner for Criminal Affairs Sami Liimatainen, who stressed that he "did not hear anything" from his colleagues about the alleged conclusions finding Moscow innocent of such sabotage, and the investigation into the cable breaks "continues as usual."

According to a member of the European Parliament, retired Major General and former head of the General Directorate of Military Intelligence of Finland Pekka Toveri, the claim that Russia was not involved in the break in cables at the bottom of the Baltic Sea is "complete nonsense."
"The Russian special services may have managed to make it so that there are no traces that could be used as evidence in court. In all hybrid operations, the most important thing is to have a plausible excuse," says Toveri.

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