Ukraine apologized to Finland after several Ukrainian drones crashed in Finnish territory yesterday, DPA reported, citing a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, BTA reports.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhy stressed that the drones were not intentionally directed towards Finland.
“We can say with certainty that Ukrainian drones did not fly towards Finland under any circumstances“, he told journalists in Kiev.
According to him, the most likely scenario is that the drones were diverted from their original course by Russian anti-aircraft electronic warfare equipment defense.
Several Ukrainian drones crashed yesterday east of the town of Kouvola in southeastern Finland, close to the border with Russia. This happened at a time when Ukraine has repeatedly attacked ports on the Baltic coast in Russia's Leningrad region in an attempt to disrupt Russian oil exports.
Kouvola is located about 70 kilometers from the Leningrad region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Finnish President Alexander Stubb also discussed the case during a telephone conversation today, the Ukrainian leader said.
“Of course, we also discussed the recent incident with drones on Finnish territory,“ Zelensky wrote in an article in Ex. “Alex and I see the situation in the same way. We share all the necessary information,” he added.
Ukrainian drones have repeatedly entered the airspace of Russia’s neighbors in the Baltic Sea region and sometimes crashed on their territory. Most recently, this happened in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.