Finland court convicts Fitburg captain, crew member of cable sabotage

A Finnish court said on Thursday it found the captain and a crew member of the cargo ship Fitburg guilty of aggravated sabotage for damaging two subsea telecommunications cables in the Gulf of Finland in 2025, Reuters reported.

Finland seized the vessel in the Gulf of Finland on December 31, 2025, while it was en route from Russia to Israel, on suspicion that it had damaged cables running from Helsinki to Estonia. The defendants, who are subject to travel bans, denied any wrongdoing and challenged Finland's jurisdiction in the case.

Yle reported that the court sentenced the captain, Andrej Maximenko of Russia, to three years and six months in prison and the boatswain, Vusal Majidov of Azerbaijan, to two years and ten months. Hufvudstadsbladet reported the same sentences and said both were detained immediately after the verdict.

Finland has intensified efforts to protect its undersea infrastructure following a string of incidents affecting cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea since 2022, including a vessel-boarding drill it conducted in September.