Finnish police have lifted the seizure of the cargo vessel Fitburg, which was held on suspicion of damaging an undersea telecommunications cable between Helsinki and Tallinn in the Gulf of Finland. The investigation continues, but authorities said the ship no longer needs to be detained.
The vessel was seized on December 31 while sailing from Russia to Israel, and one crew member was detained as part of the probe.
Police confirmed that Finnish and Estonian investigators have completed their work on board, allowing the vessel to depart Finnish waters. Some crew members remain under a travel ban, according to the National Bureau of Investigation.
The case comes amid heightened security in the Baltic Sea, where a series of recent outages affecting power cables, telecom links, and gas pipelines have raised concerns since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While authorities have not publicly concluded whether the damage was sabotage or negligence, several incidents in the region have involved vessels dragging anchors on the seabed.
