Finland Court Jails Fitburg Captain and Crew Member Over Baltic Cable Damage

A Finnish court jailed two crew members of the cargo ship Fitburg on Nov 5, 2026, over damage to two subsea telecommunications cables in the Gulf of Finland. The Helsinki District Court sentenced the captain, Russian national Andrei Maksimenko, to 3 years and 6 months in prison. It sentenced the boatswain, Azerbaijani national Vusal Majidov, to 2 years and 10 months. Reports of the verdict used two English names for the conviction. Reporting based on Finnish broadcaster Yle carried it as aggravated criminal damage, while Reuters and PA copy called it aggravated sabotage. The sentences, the facts and the court findings were the same in both sets of reports.

What the court found

The court said the two men acted intentionally when the ship dragged an anchor chain and anchor shank along the seabed for around 130 km, or 81 miles. The dragging damaged two telecommunications cables. It put seven other telecommunications and electricity cables, and one gas pipeline, at risk. The court ordered both men taken into custody at once, on unconditional prison terms.

The incident dates to Dec 31, 2025. Finland seized the Fitburg in the Gulf of Finland that day, while the ship was en route from St Petersburg in Russia to Israel, on suspicion that it had damaged cables running from Helsinki to Estonia. The ship sailed under the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and has since been released. Its 14 crew members were nationals of Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, investigators said.

Damages, appeal and a first conviction

The court ordered the two defendants to jointly pay around 1.9 million euros in damages, about 2.1 million dollars. It ordered the captain to pay about 85,000 euros more. A separate charge of aggravated interference with telecommunications was dismissed, because the court ruled it was covered by the main conviction. The trial ran for eight days of hearings between Sep 8, 2026 and Oct 8, 2026. The court also ruled that the charges could be heard under Finnish jurisdiction, even though the incident happened outside Finland territorial waters.

Both men denied wrongdoing, challenged Finland jurisdiction, and stayed in Finland under travel bans while the case ran. The captain will appeal the verdict, his lawyer said. The crew member has not yet decided whether to appeal, his lawyer said. Finnish broadcaster Yle reported that the ruling is the first conviction in Finland in a case involving damage to underwater cables. Finland has stepped up work to protect its undersea infrastructure after a string of incidents hit cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea since 2022. The court findings reported in this case name the two defendants and the anchor dragging. No report in this story attributes the act to the Russian state.