Russian warship hit by Ukrainian drone in Gulf of Finland

Detailed summary

Finnish officials have confirmed that Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) had attacked a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland on Wednesday as part of a wider drone operation on the Baltic coast.

HELSINKI — Finnish officials have confirmed that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had attacked a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland on Wednesday as part of a wider drone operation on the Baltic coast.

The SBU said it detected the Buyan-M-class missile ship, Naro-Fominsk, in Russia’s Leningrad region on the night of Nov. 11, BBC reported.

The attack, thought to be the first time Ukrainian drones have attacked a Russian ship in an area of the Baltic Sea open to civilian maritime traffic, has raised questions about whether Ukraine could expand its strikes.

Helsinki has been one of Kyiv's closest European allies, and Finnish officials have described the incident as a direct result of Russia's continued full-scale war.

Finland's military has given few details of the incident, but it appears to have taken place in a narrow stretch some distance from the Finnish coast.

The country's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen was adamant that the situation in the Baltic Sea remained stable and safe and that there was no threat of any kind to marine traffic.

Defence officials are understood to have stressed to Kyiv that the Gulf is a relatively narrow waterway used by oil tankers and civilian vessels, and is also home to subsea data cables.

Ukraine's SBU described the Russian ship as a Buyan-M type small corvette that carried Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles. There were also unconfirmed reports of Russian combat helicopters being destroyed.

Martin Herem, the defence minister of Estonia, which borders the Gulf, told public broadcaster ERR that the ship was hit at about 05:30 (03:30 GMT) on Wednesday but did not say how it was attacked: "We know that smoke came from the ship afterwards. The ship itself went back towards St Petersburg."

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