Finland suspects Russian vessel of territorial violation

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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Finland suspects a Russian vessel violated the Nordic country’s territorial waters on Friday, the government said, in the latest incident to cloud relations between the two countries.

The government said Friday’s incident took place in the eastern Gulf of Finland.

“The Border Guard is investigating the incident and will provide further information as the investigation progresses,” the Finnish defence ministry said in a statement.

Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat quoted border guard chief investigator Petter Stauffer as saying the ship was a seabed exploration vessel operating under the Russian navy’s Baltic Sea fleet.

Stauffer told the newspaper that the ship was escorted out of the area by a Finnish border guard vessel, and that the incident lasted around seven minutes.

The Finnish defence ministry and the border guard agency did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for further comment.

Relations between Finland and Russia have soured since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which prompted Helsinki to join the NATO military alliance after decades of non-alignment, and to shut all border crossings with Russia.

Last month, Finland said four Russian military planes had violated its airspace on June 10.

(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen; editing by Terje Solsvik and Mark Heinrich)