Finnish police seize ship suspected of sabotaging underwater telecommunications cable

Finnish police have arrested a ship suspected of damaging an underwater telecommunications cable linking Helsinki to Estonia across the Gulf of Finland.

The cargo ship, the Fitburg, was sailing from St. Petersburg to the port of Haifa in Israel, under the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The 14 crew members were arrested after the cable belonging to Finnish telecommunications operator Elisa was damaged. The operator said in a statement that the damage had “in no way affected the functionality of Elisa’s services” and that its services had been redirected.

Police said they were investigating “aggravated telecommunications disruption” as well as “aggravated sabotage and attempted aggravated sabotage.”

The detained crew members were Russian, Georgian, Kazakh and Azerbaijani, police added.

Undersea cables carry electricity and crucial data between countries and keep people connected to the Internet. The Baltic Sea has seen a series of incidents in recent years in which submarine cables have been damaged or completely cut.

On Wednesday morning, Finnish authorities sent a helicopter and a patrol ship to the scene, where they found that the ship was dragging its anchor in the sea, the Finnish coast guard said.

They said they had “launched operations this morning to investigate the suspected damage to the cable” after telecommunications operator Elisa detected a fault.

Finnish police said authorities had “taken control of the vessel in a joint operation.”

“At this stage, police are investigating the incident for aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with telecommunications,” police added.

“Finland is ready to face security challenges of all kinds and we respond to them if necessary,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in a statement on social media.

At a news conference, journalists asked police if the cable was damaged on behalf of another country, local media reported.

Police Chief Ilkka Koskimäki responded that “The police or other authorities do not speculate on these matters. The job of the police is to investigate what happened.”

Eight NATO countries border the Baltic Sea – Germany, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden – which also borders Russia.

The Estonian government said a second telecommunications cable connecting it to Finland also suffered an outage on Wednesday. The country’s president, Alar Karis, said “I hope this is not a deliberate act, but the investigation will clarify.”

The European Commission was closely monitoring the incident, EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen told X, adding that it was ready to counter “hybrid threats.”

Many experts and political leaders view recent incidents of alleged cable sabotage as part of a “hybrid war” waged by Russia against Western countries. The issue has received increased attention since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“We are already talking about national security. Critical infrastructure is on the front line,” Finnish MP Jarno Limnell commented on the incident, in a message on X.