World

Ukraine Strikes Russian Warship in Gulf of Finland Amid U.S.-Broked Talks

By Nils Adler

Finland’s Defence Forces reported a strike on a Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland on Wednesday, as Ukraine launched waves of drones toward Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region. The incident occurred while Russian and Ukrainian delegations held their first United States‑brokered talks in Abu Dhabi since February. The strike was the first on a Russian navy vessel in the Baltic Sea in recent months.

A Finnish military spokesperson told Reuters that Finland detected the strike and was monitoring the situation. The spokesperson said Finland was not under any immediate military threat but did not disclose the location, timing, or method of detection. It was unclear whether there were casualties. Estonian media reported that the vessel was a small Russian navy ship that later returned to St Petersburg.

On the same day, drones caused a fire in the Russian port area of Ust‑Luga, injuring three workers, according to regional Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania advised citizens to take shelter as drones entered their airspace, and NATO scrambled warplanes in response.

The Gulf of Finland is a narrow arm of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Estonia, extending east to St Petersburg. Ust‑Luga, on its southern shore, is a key export outlet for Russian oil and grain. Several Ukrainian drones deployed toward the Leningrad region have strayed into the airspace of Finland and the Baltic states, raising concerns that the war is spilling over into NATO countries that border Russia.

Finland’s Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen said Helsinki had raised the strike with Kyiv and warned about the sensitivity of the narrow stretch of the Gulf of Finland for environmental safety and civilian shipping. He assured the public that the Baltic Sea around Finland was still safe.

Ilya Timtchenko, a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Al Jazeera that the strike was believed to be the first by Ukrainian forces on a Russian ship in an area of the Baltic used by civilian traffic. He said Ukraine and its European allies were unified in their approach to fighting the Russian threat.

Ukraine’s Security Service said it attacked the Buyan‑M‑class small missile ship, Naro‑Fominsk, as part of a special operation. Ukraine’s General Staff reported that the strike on Ust‑Luga damaged five fuel tanks.

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Ireland and praised their mediation efforts.

Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. held two days of talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday. The talks produced no breakthrough, apart from an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners. Russia’s state‑run TASS news agency said the exchange should happen in two to three weeks. Territory remains the main sticking point. Ukraine wants Russia pushed back to the original border between the two countries, while Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to control all of Ukraine’s Donbas region. Moscow’s demands also focus on the expansion of NATO.

Russian negotiators proposed in Abu Dhabi that Finland leave NATO and that the alliance be barred from having military bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, according to the German newspaper Bild. The proposals also called for arrangements to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.

On Thursday, Witkoff and Kushner met Putin in Moscow, where the two sides agreed to continue the talks, before the envoys met Zelenskyy in Ireland.

Ukraine has carried out attacks during talks to keep pressure on Moscow. Timtchenko said Kyiv demonstrates that it is willing to negotiate while maintaining a position of strength. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russian refineries, ports and energy infrastructure to raise the economic cost of Moscow’s war effort. The strikes have drawn criticism from Washington.

Russia has not commented publicly on the reported strike on its warship. Governor Drozdenko said 150 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region during Wednesday’s attack, which also cut off a power station. Timtchenko said Moscow might voice harsh rhetoric and blame the Ukrainians for undermining the peace talks, but that this is not new, as Russia has continued to strike Ukraine’s military, critical infrastructure and civilians despite its pretence of seeking an end to the war.