Finnish Police Seize Cargo Vessel Suspected of Damaging Baltic Sea Telecoms Cable
Finnish police have seized the cargo vessel Fitburg on suspicion of damaging an undersea telecommunications cable connecting Helsinki and Tallinn, which is owned by the Finnish company Elisa. During the operation, 14 crew members aboard Fitburg were detained. Fitburg, flying the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, is believed to have a multinational crew including Russian, Georgian, Kazakh, and Azerbaijani nationals. The vessel had departed from Russia and was en route to Israel, and it had been dragging its anchor before being directed into Finnish territorial waters.
Authorities have opened an investigation into aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications as part of a joint operation. NATO declined to comment on the incident, while Estonia reported a second telecoms cable outage to Finland, possibly involving a cable owned by Sweden's Arelion, though its connection to the Elisa cable damage remains unclear.
This incident occurs amid heightened security concerns in the Baltic region following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with previous outages affecting cables and gas pipelines. In a related context, Finland had earlier boarded the Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S in December last year for similar suspected cable damage. However, an October court ruling dismissed the case against Eagle S personnel due to a lack of proven intent.
