The Helsinki District Court on November 5 convicted two crew members of the cargo ship Fitburg of aggravated sabotage in connection with damage to two undersea telecommunications cables in the Gulf of Finland. Russian captain Andrei Maksimenko received a sentence of three years and six months in prison, while boatswain Vusal Mejidov, a citizen of Azerbaijan was sentenced to two years and ten months.
The case concerns an incident on December 31, 2025. The court found that the vessel's anchor chain and parts of its anchor had dragged along the seabed for roughly 130 kilometers, damaging the cables. The ship was sailing from St. Petersburg to Israel when Finnish authorities stopped it after the damage was detected.
According to reports of the ruling, the court ordered compensation totaling approximately €1.9 million from the two men, with the captain required to pay a further sum of about €85,000. Both denied wrongdoing and challenged Finland's jurisdiction. The captain intends to appeal, while the boatswain had not decided whether to appeal at the time of the reports.
The conviction for aggravated sabotage does not, by itself, establish that the men acted under orders from the Russian authorities.