OMM Newsroom
Finnish officials confirmed that a Russian warship was attacked in the Gulf of Finland on Wednesday, although details of the strike remain limited, according to the BBC.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said it targeted the ship, the Naro-Fominsk, as part of a wider drone operation against Russia’s Ust-Luga oil export terminal on the Baltic coast. The strike is thought to be the first time Ukrainian drones have attacked a Russian ship in a part of the Baltic Sea open to civilian maritime traffic, raising questions about whether Ukraine could broaden its attacks.
Finland, one of Kyiv’s closest European allies, described the incident as a direct result of Russia’s continued full-scale war. Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said the situation in the Baltic Sea remained stable and safe, with no threat to marine traffic.
Finland’s military has provided few details. The attack appears to have happened in a narrow stretch of water some distance from the Finnish coast. 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 that subsea data cables also run through it.
The SBU described the Naro-Fominsk as a small Buyan-M-class corvette carrying Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles. Reports that Russian combat helicopters were destroyed have not been confirmed.
Estonian Defence Minister Martin Herem told public broadcaster ERR that the ship was hit at about 05:30 on Wednesday (03:30 GMT). He did not specify how it was attacked, but said: “We know that smoke came from the ship afterwards. The ship itself went back towards St Petersburg.”
The extent of casualties or damage to the Russian naval vessel remains unclear. Moscow rarely provides such details.
“The Baltic Sea fleet has been untouched up to this point but there seemingly was a window of opportunity for Ukraine and they understandably tried to use it,” military analyst Emil Kastehelmi, co-founder of the Black Bird monitoring group, said.
Russian and Ukrainian vessels have repeatedly been targeted in the Black Sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Kastehelmi told the BBC that, despite the unprecedented nature of the latest strike on a ship in the Baltic, he did not consider it a serious escalation.
Ukrainian drones are regularly launched into Russia from northern Ukraine. Several storage tanks at the Ust-Luga terminal are thought to have been hit overnight on Wednesday, and fires at the port were visible across the border in Estonia.
Herem said Ukrainian drones attacked the Ust-Luga region from midnight until about 06:00, mostly flying close to the Estonian border but remaining in Russian airspace. He added that one drone briefly entered Estonian airspace from Latvia before heading towards Russia.
NATO aircraft based in the Baltic states were airborne at the time, but Herem said it had not been considered safe for them to destroy the drones.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhyy said late on Wednesday that Moscow’s allegations that Kyiv had used Baltic states’ airspace to attack Russia were “baseless”. He acknowledged, however, that “incidents might occur when Russia diverts drones from its airspace using electronic warfare”.
