Updated

A Ukrainian drone struck a Russian warship, the Naro-Fominsk, in the Gulf of Finland on Wednesday, according to Finnish officials and Ukraine's SBU security service. The ship was hit at about 05:30 local time, and Estonia's defence minister Martin Herem said smoke came from it afterwards and it turned back towards St Petersburg. The SBU said the attack was part of a wider drone operation against the Ust-Luga oil export depot on the Baltic coast, where storage tanks were thought to have been hit overnight and fires were visible from Estonia. BBC World reported that the attack is thought to be the first time Ukrainian drones have struck a Russian ship in an open stretch of the Baltic Sea used by civilian traffic, raising questions about whether Ukraine could expand its strikes. Finland's military gave few details, and Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said the Baltic remained stable and safe with no threat to marine traffic. Defence officials reportedly urged Kyiv that the narrow Gulf, used by oil tankers and home to subsea data cables, should be spared. The SBU described the ship as a Buyan-M corvette carrying Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles, while the extent of damage and casualties remains unclear. Analyst Emil Kastehelmi said he did not consider the strike a serious escalation.