HELSINKI, AUG 21: Finland’s foreign ministry said Friday it had summoned the Russian ambassador to the country after a suspected airspace violation.
The Russian ambassador has been summoned, and the ministry has “requested an explanation regarding a suspected violation of airspace,” the ministry wrote on X.
Finland’s Ministry of Defense on Thursday evening reported that a suspected airspace violation had taken place.
The Finnish Border Guard said on Friday that it was a Russian reconnaissance aircraft model IL-20 that was suspected of violating Finnish airspace on Thursday afternoon for around three minutes.
The suspected violation took place in the western Gulf of Finland, south of the island Uto, and the plane reached approximately 4.7 nautical miles (nine kilometers) into Finnish airspace, according to the border guard, which has launched a preliminary investigation.
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830 mile) border with Russia has experienced a series of such incidents in recent years.
“Every suspected violation of air space is taken seriously,” Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen said in a statement on Thursday evening.
The Nordic country dropped its decades-long policy of military non-alignment when it joined NATO in April 2023.
