A Russian ship is suspected of violating Finnish territorial waters in the Gulf of Finland, a part of the Baltic Sea, the Finnish Ministry of Defense reported on Friday.
The alleged violation, currently under investigation by the Finnish Border Guard, occurred in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland on Friday afternoon, according to a brief government statement.
The ministry did not provide further details of the incident, but the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, citing information from border officials, reported that the suspected ship is the Russian Navy’s hydrographic vessel, Mikhail Kazansky.
The Russian ship, used for underwater surveying and repair work, entered Finnish territorial waters south of the city of Hamina without authorization just after noon on Friday, and the violation lasted about seven minutes, HS reported.
The previous confirmed territorial violation in the Nordic country occurred on June 10, when four aircraft, directed by the Russian state, entered Finnish airspace near the southern cities of Loviisa and Porvoo, the Ministry of Defense stated.
Finland, a NATO member, shares a 1,340-kilometer land border with Russia and serves as the European Union’s external border in the north.
