Finland to "cut" cables: Russian operators will have to look for new internet routes

The Finnish energy company Fingrid has notified Russian telecom operators that starting in 2027, it will stop servicing the power line supports on which the fiber-optic communication lines between Russia and Finland are attached. According to sources in the telecom market, the cable is planned to be cut, and the supports themselves are to be dismantled.

Reason — halt in power supplies

The formal reason was the cessation of electricity supplies from Russia to Finland back in 2022 — due to payment stoppages. Since then, maintaining the supports solely for the needs of telecom operators has lost economic sense for both Fingrid and Rosseti.

Rosseti clarified that the section of the 400 kV line belonging to the company — Vyborgskaya substation — Yllikkälä / Kymi substation — has been operating in a limited mode since 2022: power transmission and the transfer of technological information via it are not being carried out. This infrastructure is planned to be used for solving domestic power grid tasks.

How significant is this communication channel

According to expert estimates, after 2022, about 60–70% of Russia's international internet traffic transits through Finland. At the same time, up to 30% of all communication lines with this country run along power lines. The remaining traffic goes via the following routes:

• lines along the railway;
• submarine fiber-optic communication lines.

What will happen to the traffic

Russian operators are already negotiating with Finnish telecom companies about alternative routes. Sources point to backup directions through Belarus, the Baltic states, as well as through submarine cable systems in the Baltic Sea. No significant impact on subscriber traffic is expected, however, the following cannot be ruled out:

• reconfiguration of routing;
• reduction in the level of network redundancy;
• increased delays when accessing foreign resources — primarily in the Northwestern Federal District and the European part of Russia.

The situation is unfolding against the backdrop of Russia's international traffic remaining noticeably dependent on the Finnish route for several years now, despite the political tension between the countries. The decision by Fingrid formalizes what has been happening de facto since 2022: infrastructure originally built for energy cooperation is gradually losing its connection to its original purpose.

For operators, the key issue remains not the fact of dismantling the supports, but the timing and reliability of the transition to backup channels — this will determine whether end users notice a change in the quality of connection with foreign services.

AI Opinion

From the perspective of machine data analysis, shifting traffic to backup routes does not eliminate the main technical risk. The Baltic submarine cables themselves are vulnerable: over the past two years, several trunk lines have been damaged by ship anchors, with repairs taking weeks. Relying on sea lines as a replacement for overland power lines essentially swaps one narrow channel for another, less predictable one.

The macroeconomic context adds another dimension. The dismantling of Finnish infrastructure coincides with a push for digital autonomy: a whitelist system for mobile internet has already been launched in several regions. The technical isolation of traffic and the physical isolation of communication channels are developing in parallel, although formally they are not linked.

Will redundancy through the Baltic Sea remain a reliable solution, or is the country moving towards a scenario where external channels become the exception, not the rule?