Two Russian Sukhoi SU-27 fighter-bombers are suspected of violating Finnish airspace on Tuesday afternoon, July 28, the Finnish Defense Ministry announced. The incident " occurred over the Gulf of Finland near Helsinki at around 2:00 p.m. Finnish time (11:00 GMT) " and the border surveillance authority has been seized with an investigation to confirm the violation, says the ministry in a press release.
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The two planes " flew in Finnish airspace for about two minutes, " according to Niina Hyrsky, the ministry's communications director, telling AFP that Finland had dispatched F / A-18 Hornet fighter jets. to identify them.
Russian military aircraft regularly cross the Gulf of Finland to link the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, between Lithuania and Poland. Former Russian province (1809-1917), at war with the USSR during the Second World War (1939-40 then 1941-44), Finland declared itself a neutral country in 1955. The Nordic country is not a member NATO, like its Swedish neighbor, but is associated with the Atlantic Alliance through various cooperation programs.
Since the beginning of the 1990s and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two Nordic countries no longer claim to be neutral but “ not aligned ”. If Swedish-Russian relations have deteriorated in recent years, Finland is seeking to avoid a conflictual relationship with its neighbor, in particular by trying to work to reduce tensions between Europe and Moscow.