2 Russian aircraft suspected of violating Finland's airspace

 Two Russian military aircraft are suspected of having violated Finland's air close to its capital city of Helsinki, Finland’s defense ministry said Tuesday.

ministry said in a brief statement that two Russian Su-27 fighter jets allegedly violated Finland’s air over Gulf of Finland, near Helsinki, at around 2 p.m. local time (1100 GMT), Tuesday afteron.

Finnish Border Guard is investigating incident.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Nina Hyrsky told Finnish news ncy STT that Finnish Air Force F-18 jets were scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft.

She told STT that violation is suspected to have lasted about two minutes, and that planes crossed about half a kilometer (0.3 miles) into Finnish air. Finland is t a member of NATO.

Su-27 is a combat aircraft widely used by Russian military to fly from mainland Russia to nation’s Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningr, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. route passes a narrow international air corridor over Gulf of Finland.