Key facts
- Finland's military said it detected a strike on a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland area.
- A Finnish military spokesperson said Finland is not under any immediate military threat.
- The defence forces declined to give the location, timing or method of detection of the strike.
- Estonian media reported the vessel was a small Russian navy ship that later returned to St Petersburg.
- Ukraine has been sending waves of military drones toward Russia's Leningrad region, which includes St Petersburg and the Baltic port of Ust-Luga.
Finland's military said on November 12 that its forces had detected a strike on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea a day earlier, and that the security situation in the area remained stable. A spokesperson for the Finnish Defence Forces said in an emailed statement to Reuters that the military detected the strike in the Gulf of Finland area and monitored the situation. The spokesperson added that Finland is not under any immediate military threat.
The defence forces declined to provide further details about the location or timing of the incident, or how it was detected. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties or what caused the strike.
Estonian media reported on November 12 that the vessel was a small Russian navy ship and that it later returned to St Petersburg. The Gulf of Finland is a narrow arm of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia that extends eastward to St Petersburg.
Ukraine has been sending waves of military drones toward Russia's northwest Leningrad region, which includes St Petersburg and 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 issued warnings to citizens to take shelter due to drones in their airspace early on November 11, and NATO scrambled warplanes in response.