A Finnish court said on Thursday that it was sending a cargo ship’s captain and senior crew member to prison for damaging undersea cables in what the authorities have described as an act of sabotage.
In a statement, Helsinki’s district court said the “intentional crimes” in the Gulf of Finland last year had posed a “particularly serious danger to important functions of society.” It convicted the men of aggravated criminal damage, sentencing the captain to 42 months in prison and the boatswain to 34 months. The men had pleaded not guilty; their lawyers said they planned to appeal.
The cargo ship, the Fitburg, sailed under the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and was traveling from Russia to Israel on the morning of Dec. 31 when it dropped anchor in the Gulf of Finland.
The Fitburg then dragged an anchor block and anchor chain along the seabed for “several hours,” covering about 81 miles, the court said, crossing over a gas pipeline as well as nine telecommunication and electricity cables.
The dragging did not disrupt service but damaged two telecommunication cables, including one connecting the capital cities of Helsinki, Finland, and Tallinn, Estonia. It also risked damaging the other cables and the gas pipeline, according to the statement from the court.
The court did not name the captain or boatswain, who local media reported held Russian and Azerbaijani citizenship. As first-time offenders, they could be released after serving half of their sentences.
The two were also ordered to pay for repairing the cables and gas pipeline as well as for the costs of Finland’s investigation. Details of those sums were not provided.
The Finnish authorities have not pointed the finger at any foreign actor for the Fitburg incident, which came during a spate of hybrid attacks against Ukraine’s western allies in the Baltic region.
In November 2024, Germany called the severing of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea an act of sabotage aimed at European countries supporting Ukraine.
A month later, Finland seized an oil tanker on the suspicion that it was involved in cutting vital undersea cables and said that the ship might have been part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” aimed at evading Western restrictions.
In January 2025, the Swedish authorities seized a ship in connection with what they described as “gross sabotage” after damage to another undersea cable in the Baltic Sea, and Norway seized a Russian-crewed ship suspected of damaging an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea.
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