Finland probing Russia sanctions breach over nuclear plant construction

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Finland's customs authority said on Thursday it was investigating an attempted breach of Russian sanctions in a case involving sensitive documents related to the construction of a nuclear power plant.

"The preliminary investigation has focused on a significant number of archive documents that were attempted to be taken to Russia from a warehouse located in Kymenlaakso," the Economic Crime Investigation Unit of Finnish Customs said in a statement.

"Based on the preliminary investigation, some of the data is classified as material subject to sanctions against Russia."

Finnish customs declined to comment further, but said the managing director of a construction company involved in the project was a suspect.

A decision about whether to bring charges will be made when the investigation is completed, Finnish Customs said.

Finland has five nuclear reactors at two power plants - Loviisa and Olkiluoto. Fortum, which owns Loviisa and TVO, Olkiluoto's owner, said their plants were not part of the investigation.

Finland dropped plans for a sixth plant at Hanhikivi, which was planned to house a reactor from Russia's Rosatom, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

(Reporting by Simon Johnson and Essi Lehto, editing by Ed Osmond)

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