The damage to the Baltic Sea gas pipeline that burst on Sunday was caused by "quite heavy force", Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said on Wednesday, a day after Finland said it could have been a deliberate action.
The Balticconnector subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia were damaged on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Helsinki said the damage was likely caused by "outside activity" and that the cause was being investigated.
"It can clearly be seen that these damages are caused by quite heavy force," Pevkur told Reuters, adding that investigators were not ruling out anything at this stage.
"So what it is exactly, we have to specify yet, but at the moment it rather seems that it had been mechanical impact or mechanical destruction."
Henri Vanhanen, research fellow at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs, said the central issue would be how NATO reacted if evidence was gathered that a state actor was behind the pipeline damage. Finland and Estonia are both members.
"Because this could mean that this is an attack against NATO member infrastructure," he said. "I think the big question in the long term is that do we have a clear set of potential countermeasures for such activities? What is the deterrence?"
GRAPHIC-Balticconnector map https://tmsnrt.rs/3FegRZS
(Reuters - Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Tom Little in Malmo, writing by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)