President Alexander Stubb said Friday that Finland was “not facing any direct military threat” after a drone entered the country’s airspace near Helsinki.
Kari Nisula, chief of operations for the Finnish Defence Forces, later said Finland had received advanced warning through military intelligence channels about approaching drones, but declined to say where the information came from.
Finnish Air Force Hornets were deployed over the capital and the Gulf of Finland after authorities detected a suspected drone in their skies. Residents in the wider Uusimaa region were briefly told to stay indoors.
“I thank the authorities for their swift response to this morning’s drone alert,” Stubb wrote on X. They “demonstrated that they were well-prepared. Readiness was swiftly enhanced. Finland is not facing any direct military threat,” he added.
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo also urged calm, reassuring citizens that Finland’s armed forces “have intensified their surveillance and counter-capabilities” and “official measures” were “underway.”
“The danger has passed. People can go to work and school safely,” Interior Minister Mari Rantanen wrote on X early Friday morning.
The incident came amid a large-scale overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Russian territory. The Russian Ministry of Defense said it had shot down 355 drones, including in the Pskov region bordering Estonia and Latvia.
The Finnish alert was lifted shortly after 7 a.m. local time. No casualties or damage were reported. Flights at Helsinki-Vantaa airport were disrupted for three hours but have since resumed.
Friday’s incident is not the first drone-related spillover from Russia’s war in Ukraine to hit Finland. In March, two drones crossed into Finnish territory and crashed after flying low over the sea and southeastern Finland.
In nearby Latvia, the coalition government collapsed Thursday after Prime Minister Evika Siliņa fired Defense Minister Andris Sprūds over the handling of stray Ukrainian drone strikes.
