Finland’s military says it detected a strike on a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland, but details about the incident, including its cause and whether anyone was hurt, remain unclear.

A Finnish military spokesperson told Reuters by email that Finnish forces had detected the strike and were monitoring developments, according to Al Jazeera. The spokesperson said Finland faced no “immediate military threat”.

The military did not disclose the precise location or timing of the incident, where the strike originated or how it was detected. Reuters described the strike as having occurred on Wednesday and said it was not immediately clear whether there were casualties or what had caused it.

Local media reported that the vessel was a small Russian navy ship that returned to Saint Petersburg after the alleged attack. Finnish broadcaster Yle reported that Ukraine’s Security Service had claimed responsibility. The Finnish statement did not identify an attacker.

The Gulf of Finland is a narrow arm of the Baltic Sea shared by Finland and Estonia. The report came amid other drone-related security alerts in the region.

Russia said it had intercepted at least 146 Ukrainian drones in the northwestern Leningrad region in recent days. On Wednesday, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania warned residents to take shelter because of drones in their airspace, and NATO warplanes were scrambled in response.

The reported strike also coincided with another round of U.S. shuttle diplomacy. On Thursday, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ireland. Zelenskyy praised their mediation efforts.

Those meetings followed trilateral negotiations in the United Arab Emirates that produced no major breakthrough beyond an agreement on a large prisoner exchange. Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said the swap should take place in two to three weeks.

Kushner said on X that officials were working toward what could be the war’s largest prisoner exchange, potentially reuniting thousands of people with their families. The exchange had not been finalised.

Sources