![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026-01-01T054519Z_2_LYNXMPELBU0IY_RTROPTP_4_FINLAND-SECURITY-1024x683.jpg\")
Seized vessel Fitburg rests in harbour in Kirkkonummi, Finland, December 31, 2025. Roni Rekomaa\/Lehtikuva\/via REUTERS<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Reuters
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJanuary 1, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t 75 <\/p>\n
Seized vessel Fitburg rests in harbour in Kirkkonummi, Finland, December 31, 2025. Roni Rekomaa\/Lehtikuva\/via REUTERS<\/p>\n
Finnish police on Wednesday seized a\u00a0ship\u00a0sailing\u00a0from Russia on suspicion of sabotaging an undersea telecoms cable running from Helsinki to Estonia across the Gulf of\u00a0Finland, an area hit by a string of similar incidents in recent years.<\/p>\n
The seized cargo vessel \u201cFitburg\u201d was en route from the Russian port of St Petersburg to Israel at the time of the incident,\u00a0Finland\u2018s Border Guard authority told a press conference in Helsinki.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment we suspect aggravated disruption of telecommunications and also aggravated sabotage and attempted aggravated sabotage,\u201d Helsinki Chief of Police Jari Liukku told reporters.<\/p>\n
Concern is growing in Europe at what officials see as an increase in hybrid threats from Russia since it launched its war in Ukraine, which Moscow denies.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, NATO\u2019s top military commander said the alliance must be ready to respond to these type of threats to defend its territory.<\/p>\n
Hybrid threats refer to both military and non-military tactics designed to undermine an adversary\u2019s security. They can include cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, sabotage of key infrastructure and use of drones or irregular armed groups.<\/p>\n
STATES ON HIGH ALERT IN BALTIC SEA SINCE UKRAINE CONFLICT<\/p>\n
The Fitburg\u2019s 14 crew members were from Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and were all held by Finnish police, investigators said. The\u00a0ship\u00a0sailed under the flag of St Vincent and Grenadines.<\/p>\n
According to LSEG data, the owner of the vessel is Fitburg\u00a0Shipping Company Ltd and the manager is Albros\u00a0Shipping and Trading Ltd. Reuters was not able to reach either of those companies via telephone.<\/p>\n
Eight NATO states border the Baltic Sea, which also borders Russia. They have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecoms links and gas pipelines that run along the relatively shallow seabed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
NATO has boosted its presence in the Baltic with frigates, aircraft and naval drones in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain in contact with the Finnish authorities, through exchange of information, via the NATO\u00a0shipping centre located at our Allied Maritime Command in Northwood, UK,\u201d an official at the military alliance said.<\/p>\n
The Fitburg was dragging its anchor in the sea, and was directed to Finnish territorial waters, the police and\u00a0Finland\u2018s Border Guard said. The cable belongs to Finnish telecoms group Elisa.<\/p>\n
\u2018HOPEFULLY NOT DELIBERATE\u2019 SAYS ESTONIAN PRESIDENT<\/p>\n
Estonia\u2019s justice ministry said a second telecoms cable connecting the country to\u00a0Finland\u00a0had also suffered an outage on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if the cable, belonging to Sweden\u2019s Arelion, was running parallel\u00a0to Elisa\u2019s.<\/p>\n
An Arelion spokesperson confirmed that the company had suffered an outage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m concerned about the reported damage\u2026 Hopefully it was not a deliberate act, but the investigation will clarify,\u201d Estonia\u2019s President Alar Karis said on X.<\/p>\n
The European Commission was closely monitoring the incident, EU technology commissioner Henna Virkkunen wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Finland\u00a0in December 2024 boarded the Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S which investigators said had damaged a power cable and several telecoms links in the Baltic Sea by dragging its anchor.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0ship\u2018s flag state or the crew\u2019s home countries.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Essi Lehto and Anne Kauranen in Helsinki, Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, additional reporting by Julia Payne and Louise Rasmussen, Editing by Louise Heavens, Alexandra Hudson)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Reuters January 1, 2026 75 Seized vessel Fitburg rests in harbour in Kirkkonummi, Finland, December 31, 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-215463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}