Finland says it detects strike on Russian warship in Baltic Sea

HELSINKI — Finland’s military said on Thursday its forces had detected “a strike” on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea a day earlier, but that the security situation in the area remained stable.

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties or what had caused the strike. Estonian media reported on Thursday that the vessel was a small Russian navy ship and that it later returned to St. Petersburg.

“The Finnish Defence Forces detected… a strike on a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland area and has monitored the development of the situation,” a spokesperson for the Nordic country’s military said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Finland is not under any immediate military threat, the spokesperson added. The defense forces declined to provide further details about the location or timing of the incident, or how it was detected.

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, leading to fears that the war is spilling over into NATO countries that border Russia and its ally Belarus.

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.

The Gulf of Finland is a narrow arm of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia that extends eastwards to St Petersburg.