The Kremlin has denied any involvement in damaging a crucial undersea telecom cable connecting Finland with Germany.
The link was cut on Monday morning, apparently deliberately.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said that allegations of Russian involvement are "laughable". He claimed it was absurd that Russia is accused of "all sorts of things without any evidence.
Experts have suggested that Russia might have a motive to engage in cable sabotage.
A day before the Finland-Germany data link was cut, a similar cable linking Sweden and Lithuania was also damaged at a site "tens of nautical miles away from each other," according to Cinia, the majority-state-owned owner of the Finnish cable.
A Chinese vessel, the Yi Peng 3, was observed in the area around the time the damage was caused to both cables. Its beacon signal was turned off from Sunday evening until early Monday.
On Wednesday, the ship was at anchor in the Kattegat Strait off the Danish island of Zealand, with a Danish Navy frigate alongside it.
However, a Danish naval officer told Yle that the Chinese ship will likely continue its journey out of the Baltic Sea, and that Danish naval vessels will not stop it from doing so. He said that Danish authorities could not prevent its passage without clear evidence of involvement in the damage.
Danish Navy surveillance
Four Royal Danish Navy vessels, including the HDMS Niels Juel and the Søløven, have followed the Yi Peng 3 in recent days.
The ship is owned by a firm called Ningbo Yipeng Shipping Co. Ltd, which is registered in the city of Ningbo, close to Shanghai.
According to the Chinese trade register, the company is owned by two Chinese businessmen. Yle tried to reach them via email and phone, with no response.
The Financial Times said on Wednesday that it had managed to reach the company's owners, who had said they had been asked by Chinese authorities to help with investigations into the incidents.
They declined to comment further.
Joint Finnish-Swedish investigation
Damage to the cable, which is responsible for some 1.44 terabits of data, is now the subject of a criminal probe by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, although police were tight-lipped about possible suspects on Wednesday.
The cable damage is being investigated as aggravated vandalism and aggravated interference with communications. Finland and Sweden are establishing a joint investigation team.
At present, there is no proof that the Yi Peng 3 caused damage to the cables, but Swedish public broadcaster SVT reports that the authorities are investigating that ship due to its known movements in the area.
The Yi Peng 3 was built in 2001 in South Korea, and acquired by its current owners in 2016, when it was called the Avra. The company owns two other freighters, the Yi Peng and the Yi Peng 5.
The company was ordered to pay around 2,500 euros in compensation to a former employee in a case ruled on by the Ningbo Maritime Court.
Just over a year ago, Finnish and Estonian authorities blamed a Chinese ship, the NewNew Polar Bear, for breaking an electric cable and a gas pipeline between the two countries. That investigation is still underway in cooperation with the Chinese government.
5.17pm: Updated with possible criminal charges, other details.
