Finland confirms strike on Russian warship in Gulf of Finland
Finland’s military said its forces detected “a strike” on a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland area and monitored the situation, adding that the security situation remained stable and Finland was not under any immediate military threat.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said it targeted the ship Naro-Fominsk as part of a broader drone operation against Russia’s Ust-Luga oil export depot on the Baltic coast. The SBU described the Russian ship as a Buyan-M type small corvette that carried Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles.
Estonian Defence Minister Martin Herem told public broadcaster ERR that the ship was hit at about 05:30 (03:30 GMT) on Wednesday. “We know that smoke came from the ship afterwards. The ship itself went back towards St Petersburg,” Herem said.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhyy said Moscow’s allegations that Kyiv had used the airspace of the Baltic states to attack Russia were “baseless”, although he acknowledged “incidents might occur when Russia diverts drones from its airspace using electronic warfare”.
Ukraine has been sending waves of military drones towards Russia’s northwest Leningrad region, which includes the city of St. Petersburg as well as the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, a major export outlet for commodities such as oil and grain. Some Ukrainian drones have strayed into the airspace of Finland and the Baltic region.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania early on Wednesday issued warnings to citizens to take shelter due to drones in their airspace, and NATO scrambled warplanes in response. Nato aircraft based in the Baltic states were in the air at the time, but Herem said it had not been considered safe for them to destroy the drones.
The Gulf of Finland is a narrow arm of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia that extends eastwards to St Petersburg.
