Finland Detains General Cargo Ship Suspected of Damaging Subsea Cables

Finnish authorities moved quickly to find and detain a vessel suspected of damaging subsea telecommunications cables running between Estonia and Finland. A suspected vessel has been detained while the investigation is ongoing, but officials are cautioning that the damage could have been accidental.

Finnish telecom company Elisa reported a fault on one of its cables that was discovered around 0500 on December 31. Since then, the Swedish telecom company Arelion has also reported an interruption on another cable running between Estonia and Finland. Officials in Estonia noted that three other cables have reported outages recently, but they suspect the earlier incidents might have been related to bad weather in the region.

After Elisa reported the outage, the Finnish Coast Guard, using the Border Patrol vessel Turva and a helicopter, began surveying the region. The cable damage happened in the Estonian EEZ, but they quickly located a vessel in the Finnish EEZ that was sailing with its anchor chain visibly lowered. The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reports that Coast Guard Commander Mikko Simola said initially there were three suspected vessels, before they identified the prime suspect.

Finnish authorities instructed the cargo ship to stop and raise its anchor chain. They then directed the vessel into a Finnish anchorage for investigation. The matter was handed over to the Helsinki Police Department to conduct the investigation, working with multiple agencies and coordinating with the Estonian authorities.

The Finnish Attorney General’s office issued an indictment to detain the ship, which is being identified in the Finnish media as the Fitburg (9,800 dwt). The investigation is proceeding under the criminal charges of suspected aggravated damage, suspected attempted aggravated damage, and interference with telecommunications.

Helsingin Sanomat reports there are 14 crewmembers aboard, of Russian, Georgian, Kazakh, and Azerbaijani nationalities. They have all been detained and are being questioned. The ship is also undergoing a “forensic investigation,” including of its anchor.

Databases reflect the Fitburg as being owned and operated by a Turkish company since 2021. The general cargo ship is 132 meters (433 feet) in length and registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Its AIS signal reflects it departed Saint Petersburg, Russia, on December 30.

Elisa reports that it has been able to maintain service using other cables while it works to investigate the damage. Bad weather has prevented an immediate effort to inspect the damaged cables.

There have been multiple reports in the past few years of cable damage in the Baltic, with Finland, Estonia, and NATO all increasing patrols. Finland detained a shadow fleet tanker after another cable was damaged on Christmas Day, December 2024. They prosecuted three crewmembers, but a Finnish court released them, saying it was outside Finnish jurisdiction. The Finnish Attorney General has appealed the court ruling.