Finnish court sentences Russian captain to 3.5 years for deliberately damaging Gulf of Finland cables

A Helsinki court sentenced two crew members of the Fitburg, a ship that damaged cables in the Gulf of Finland, to prison, Yle and Reuters reported.The ship’s captain, Russian citizen Andrei Maksimenko, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.The boatswain, Azerbaijani citizen Vusal Majidov, was sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison. The court also ordered both men to pay for repairs to the cables.The Fitburg damaged cables running along the Baltic seabed between Finland and Estonia in late 2025 while sailing from St. Petersburg to Israel. Finnish authorities detained the ship after the damage occurred.The court found that the defendants acted deliberately, noting that the Fitburg dragged its anchor along the seabed for about 130 kilometers (81 miles).Undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea have been damaged in several incidents in recent years. Authorities in the region have blamed Russia.According to Western officials, the Russian military attempted in 2026 to test new technology in the Atlantic Ocean designed to disable undersea communications cables.The CIA recently warned Poland that Russia could damage undersea cables between Europe and the United States, Newsweek reported.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.