Shadow fleet
A set of ships with opaque ownership structures and flags of convenience, used to circumvent sanctions and responsibilities.
On December 25, 2024, the Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia was damaged. The Eagle S, suspected of dragging its anchor along the seabed, claimed an accidental maneuver, and without proof of intent the act could not be tied to any state, so a war exclusion had nothing to bite on. The case sums up the shadow fleet: ships with deliberately opaque ownership, flying flags of convenience, often without standard Western insurance, used to evade sanctions or to carry out hostile acts that leave no attributable trace. In hybrid warfare they serve as tools of quiet sabotage: an anchor scrapes the seabed and cuts communication and power cables. The Baltic has seen a string of such incidents since 2024. Their strategic value is deniability, since damage can always pass for an accident. For the marine underwriter, the loss looks like a state act but cannot be treated as one, and that attribution problem is what makes hybrid war so hard to insure.
When a shadow-fleet vessel severs a cable in the Baltic and then invokes an accidental maneuver, the absence of proof of intent prevents attributing the act to a state, and so applying a war exclusion. That was the case of the Eagle S, suspected of damaging Estlink 2 on December 25, 2024.
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