Finnish police arrest 2 over undersea cable damage

Finnish authorities have arrested two people as they continue to investigate damage to an undersea telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland.

The two were part of the crew aboard the cargo vessel, Fitburg, which is suspected of damaging a cable linking Helsinki, Finland, and Tallinn, Estonia.

Authorities placed two other crew members under travel bans as part of the ongoing investigation and had begun ‌questioning ⁠all crew members.

"The interviews have clarified the course of events and the different roles of the crew members," Detective Chief Superintendent Risto Lohi of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

The Fitburg was en route from St. Petersburg, Russia, to the port of Haifa, Israel, when the incident occurred.

The ship's 14 crew members are from Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, and the ship was sailing under the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Finnish National Police Commissioner Ilkka Koskimaki said earlier this week that the ship was dragging its anchor for hours when it was discovered.

Finnish Customs said in a statement that it found structural steel in the cargo that came from Russia and is subject to EU sanctions.

"Import of such sanctioned goods into the EU is prohibited under EU sanctions regulations," the statement said.

"Finnish Customs continues to investigate the sequence of events and the applicability of EU sanctions legislation to this case."

Police said they were investigating aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications.

So far, they have refused to comment on whether a state-level actor was behind the damage.

This incident comes amid a series of outages affecting power cables, telecom links, and gas pipelines connecting Nordic, Baltic, and other European countries since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Experts and political leaders have viewed the suspected cable sabotage as part of a "hybrid war" carried out by Russia against Western countries.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video