Nato said on Friday it would boost its presence in the Baltic Sea after the suspected sabotage this week of an undersea power cable and four internet lines.

Finland on Thursday seized a ship carrying Russian oil on suspicion the vessel had caused an outage of the Estlink 2 undersea power cable. 

This undersea power cable links the country with Estonia and fibre-optic lines. Finland on Friday said it had asked Nato for support.

Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for acts of sabotage after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“We have agreed with Estonia, and we have also communicated to Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, that our wish is to have a stronger Nato presence,” Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, told a news conference.