Why the Kremlin is not concerned about the fate of our arrested tanker — lawyer's opinion

The Eagle S tanker, which the Finns consider part of the Russian shadow fleet, was detained on December 26 on suspicion of involvement in damage to cables between Estonia and Finland. The situation Pravda.Ru Sergey Kubantsev, a specialist in international law, commented on the Candidate of Legal Sciences.

The "crime" is that when the border guards asked the Eagle S team to lift the anchor, only the anchor chain appeared on the surface. In the wake of the incident The EU announced sanctions on the Russian "shadow fleet", and Finland demanded to increase the presence of NATO forces in the Baltic Sea.

Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, as usual, evaded the answer, saying that the detention of the tanker is "a very narrow issue, which is hardly the prerogative of the presidential administration."

According to Kubantsev, Finland, when arresting the Eagle S tanker flying the flag of the Cook Islands and owned by the owner in the UAE, followed international rules. If the ship's fault in the cable damage is not proven, Finland will pay compensation.

Retaliatory legal actions will be taken by the owner of the vessel and the State of the port of registry — the Cook Islands, since the legislation of the Cook Islands is in force on the territory of this vessel.

The expert noted that from the point of view of international law, Finland "did everything within the framework of international rules of navigation and the use of sea vessels." Sergey Kubantsev recalled that the tanker was offered to enter the territorial waters of Finland and there the Finnish Maritime Security service boarded and actually restricted the further movement of the vessel.

Subsequent actions, according to Sergey Kubantsev, depend on the results of the investigation of the incident. If the Finnish authorities prove that the vessel intentionally or unintentionally damaged the cable, they will deal with the crew, but the vessel will still be returned to the owner with the cargo, while the losses from unplanned parking will not be reimbursed. If the vessel is released without any claims, the owner will file a claim or claim for damages. The vessel is chartered by a certain amount per day. Every day of downtime increases the cost of team salaries and transportation costs. The owner will sue the Finnish authorities. Then it will be a court case.

The expert considers the situation difficult. He explained that there are many questions about the anchor chain raised by Eagle S without an anchor, as the authorities say "in the shipping zone", where the parking of ships is prohibited.

"There are clearly defined rules for parking vessels in the shipping zone, rules for sailing and parking vessels in the seaport waters. And everything is described where they can stand on the raid, and all navigation maps clearly show the parking area, the shipping area. And in the shipping zone it is impossible to stay anchored. Why was the anchor lowered at the ship?" — the expert noted.

Sergey Kubantsev does not rule out that this whole situation is a "stuffing" of Finland, since there is a massive information war going on and it is difficult to find in the world over the past 10 years "any unfavorable event in which the Russian Federation would not be involved in a negative way." A striking example is the undermining of the Nord Stream, which, as it is believed in the West, was undermined by Russia itself, allegedly so that unfriendly countries would not receive gas. The expert advised to always look in controversial cases for who benefits from it:

"In fact, in our case, 6,000 people were left without Internet. This is probably not something that is not beneficial for Russia, it has absolutely no effect on Russian interests. And it is doubtful to jeopardize your reputation for this reason."