Finnish Police Detain Cargo Vessel Fitburg for Suspected Damage to Undersea Telecom Cable
Finnish police have detained the cargo vessel Fitburg in the Gulf of Finland on suspicion of damaging an undersea telecommunications cable connecting Helsinki and Estonia.
The cable, owned by Elisa, suffered damage that did not affect service functionality as traffic was rerouted accordingly.
Authorities arrested all 14 crew members of the Fitburg, whose nationalities include Russian, Georgian, Kazakh, and Azerbaijani.
The ship was sailing from St Petersburg to Haifa, Israel, flying the flag of St Vincent and the Grenadines at the time of the incident.
Police are investigating potential charges including aggravated disruption of telecommunications, aggravated sabotage, and attempted aggravated sabotage.
A helicopter and patrol ship were deployed to locate the vessel, which was found dragging its anchor and subsequently taken under joint operational control.
Meanwhile, Estonia reported a second outage related to the incident. President Alar Karis stated that the investigation will determine whether the damage was deliberate.
The European Union is monitoring the situation closely, with EU technology commissioner Henna Virkkunen noting readiness to counter hybrid threats.
