A Russian warship has been attacked in the Gulf of Finland, forcing it to turn back and return to port. Ukraine's security service, the SBU, said it targeted the ship Naro-Fominsk during a wider drone strike against a Kremlin oil export depot in the Baltic Sea.
It is thought to be the first time Ukrainian drones have attacked a Russian vessel in an area of the Baltic open to civilian maritime traffic. Finland's military said there was no immediate threat and described the incident as being the result of Russia's continued full-scale war.
Finnish Defence Forces response
'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 said. The defence forces declined to provide further details about the location or timing of the incident, or how it was detected.
It appears to have taken place in the early hours of Wednesday in a narrow stretch near Suursaari, about 28 miles from Finland's coast.
Diplomatic context
The attack came as Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, also the president's son-in-law, travelled to the Kremlin for talks with Vladimir Putin. The two then flew to Dublin to meet with Volodymyr Zelensky as Washington sought new momentum for its peace efforts.
The talks produced no major breakthrough, aside from an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners, with the exact figure still to be announced. Plans for another round of talks were announced as well, with Europe promised a seat at the table, though no details were given about which countries or how many would join.
Escalation of strikes
Ukraine has stepped up strikes on Russia's oil sites in recent months amid outrage at Putin's continued targeting of energy infrastructure in defiance of Trump's demand to halt the attacks.
Kyiv has been sending waves of 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.
