Overview
- Finnish Border Guard located the Fitburg with its anchor chain lowered, ordered it to raise anchor, and directed it into Finnish waters where authorities seized the ship.
- Fourteen crew members were detained for questioning; the St. Vincent and the Grenadines–flagged vessel had departed St. Petersburg bound for Haifa, according to MarineTraffic data.
- Helsinki police are investigating suspected aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage, and aggravated interference with telecommunications, with the case now led by the Helsinki Police Department after a prosecution order.
- Elisa reported the fault on its Finland–Estonia cable in Estonia’s EEZ and said services were maintained through rerouting, while Estonia also reported an outage on a separate Arelion link; officials are coordinating with Estonian counterparts and through NATO information channels.
- Finnish Customs said the ship’s cargo included Russian steel believed to fall under EU sanctions, impounded the goods, and opened a preliminary inquiry into a potential sanctions violation.