HELSINKI, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The Finnish Defense Ministry said a Russian aircraft is suspected of having violated Finnish air space on Wednesday morning.
The ministry said the aircraft had flown one kilometer into Finnish territory near the city of Porvoo, east of Helsinki, and the incident took two minutes. The Russian aircraft was on a westward flight direction.
The ministry did not say what kind of aircraft was involved, Finnish commercial television news reported.
The international eastwest flight space over the Gulf of Finland is narrow and is flanked by national airspaces of Finland and Estonia.
There has been only one airspace violation in Finland this year as a Portuguese military aircraft entered Finnish air space erroneously west of Helsinki in April. No violations were reported in 2018, while in 2017 there were four cases.
On Monday this week, Finnish air force flew identification sorties to the sea to establish the identities of a group Russian aircraft, but there was no air space violation.
The air force notified the media about its Monday operations as the loud bangs associated with flying at supersonic speeds at low altitude had aroused concern in southern Finland.
