Finnish court jails Russian captain and Azerbaijani sailor over Baltic Sea cable damage

A Helsinki district court sentenced two crew members of the cargo ship Fitburg to prison for damaging undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland in late 2025, Finnish broadcaster Yle reported on Nov. 5.

The ship’s captain, Russian citizen Andrei Maksimenko, was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, while its boatswain, Azerbaijani citizen Vusal Majidov, received a sentence of two years and 10 months. Both were immediately taken into custody.

The court found Maksimenko and Majidov responsible for the Fitburg dragging its anchor along the seabed for several hours on Dec. 31, 2025, damaging two telecommunications cables. The incident also put several other telecommunications and power cables, as well as a gas pipeline, at risk.

Investigators determined that the anchor was lowered after the vessel departed St. Petersburg, Russia, but before it left Russian territorial waters.

The court concluded that both the captain and boatswain knew the anchor was down but failed to stop the ship. The anchor was raised only after Finnish authorities issued warnings. The ruling is not final and can be appealed.

Damage to an undersea cable connecting Finland and Estonia was discovered in the Gulf of Finland on the morning of Dec. 31, 2025. Estonia’s Justice Ministry reported at the time that damage had also been detected in late 2025 to four communications cables linking Estonia to other countries and another cable connecting the island of Hiiumaa to the mainland.

Baltic Sea cable damage — key facts

On Nov. 18, 2024, Andrius Šemeškevičius, chief technology officer of Lithuanian telecommunications company Telia, reported that an undersea cable connecting Lithuania and Sweden had been damaged in the Baltic Sea.

Finnish authorities also reported damage to another undersea cable, C-Lion1, connecting Finland and Germany.

On Nov. 27, 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 may have deliberately dragged its anchor along the Baltic seabed, damaging two undersea communications cables linking Finland, Lithuania and Germany.

On Dec. 25, 2024, electricity transmission between Finland and Estonia was disrupted after the Estlink 2 undersea power cable went offline.

That same day, Estonia reported disruptions to three other undersea communications cables. The Cook Islands-flagged tanker Eagle S, which may have been part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” was suspected of involvement in the damage.

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