The ship from Russia arrested by Finland dragged its anchor tens of kilometers from the bottom of the sea / Latest details from the investigation
Finnish coastguard helicopter and vessel arresting Fitburg vessel. Photo: Handout / AFP / Profimedia
The Russian vessel suspected of damaging an undersea telecommunications cable connecting Helsinki to Tallinn in the Gulf of Finland dragged its anchor for tens of kilometers before touching the cable, Finnish police said on Sunday, according to AFP.
Investigators are reconstructing the ship's maneuvers to determine whether it intentionally damaged the submarine cable.
The Finnish Coast Guard detained the Fitburg, a Saint-Vincent-et-les-Grenadines-flagged freighter, on December 31, which had departed from St. Petersburg, Russia, bound for Haifa, Israel.
The ship is suspected of being responsible for damaging a submarine cable, which belongs to the Finnish telecommunications group Elisa and was in Estonia's exclusive economic zone.
“Based on the examinations carried out to date, there are reasons to suspect that the Fitburg's anchor and anchor chain were dragged on the seabed for at least several tens of kilometers before reaching the point where the telecommunications cable belonging to the Elisa was damaged,” the police added.
In the fall trial of a Russian Ghost Fleet vessel that damaged cables in late 2024, Finnish prosecutors believed the crew had intentionally let the anchor drag for 90 kilometers. Ultimately, the court declared itself incompetent to hear the case.
In the Fitburg case, a crew member of Azerbaijani nationality was placed in detention for a week by a court in Helsinki at the request of the police, the head of the investigation, Kimmo Huhta-aho, said at the end of the hearing.
Another member, a Russian national, is subject to a travel ban, bringing to three the number of sailors who must remain in Finland. The ship's crew consisted of fourteen members originally from Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
Finnish police opened an investigation into “serious criminal damage, attempted serious criminal damage and serious obstruction of telecommunications”.
In recent years, energy and communication infrastructures, including submarine cables and pipelines, have been damaged in the Baltic Sea.
Since Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many experts and policymakers consider the alleged sabotage of the cables to be an element of Russia's “hybrid war” against Western countries.
