Finnish police in December 2025 seized a ship sailing from Russia on suspicion of sabotaging an undersea telecoms cable running from Helsinki to Estonia across the Gulf of Finland, an area hit by a string of similar incidents in recent years. The seized cargo vessel Fitburg was en route from the Russian port of St Petersburg to Israel at the time of the incident, Finland’s Border Guard authority said at a news conference in Helsinki. “At the moment, we suspect aggravated disruption of telecommunications and also aggravated sabotage and attempted aggravated sabotage,” Helsinki Chief of Police Jari Liukku told reporters.
Concern is growing in Europe at what officials see as an increase in hybrid threats from Russia since it launched its war in Ukraine. Earlier in December, NATO’s top military commander said the alliance must be ready to respond to these types of threats to defend its territory. A spokesperson for Arelion, the telecommunications company, confirmed it had suffered an outage. “I’m concerned about the reported damage. … Hopefully it was not a deliberate act, but the investigation will clarify,” Estonia’s President Alar Karis said on X.
The European Commission was closely monitoring the incident, EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen wrote on X. Finland in December 2024 boarded the Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S, which investigators said had dragged its anchor and damaged a power cable and several telecommunications links in the Baltic Sea.
A Finnish court in October dismissed a criminal case against the Eagle S captain and other crew members, ruling prosecutors failed to prove intent and that any alleged negligence must be pursued by the ship’s flag state or the crew’s home countries.