Ukraine drone shot down by NATO jet over Estonia
Ukraine accused Russia of directing one of its drones into Estonian airspace, where a NATO jet shot it down; This was the latest cross-border drone incident to spark political turmoil in the Baltic states.
Latvia issued its first aerial threat warning of a possible drone entering its airspace on Tuesday, telling residents near the Russian border to stay indoors and NATO Baltic Air Police jets were called to the area. He later said there was no evidence of a drone entering the airspace.
After that, he declared a second air threat alert in two districts bordering Russia, leading to the new deployment of NATO warplanes.
“Russia continues to direct Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles to the Baltic countries using its electronic warfare,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said in a statement to X. he said.
“We apologize to Estonia and all our Baltic friends for such undesirable events.”
He also said Kiev was not using Latvian or Estonian territory to launch drone attacks on Russia, as the Baltic states have repeated.
“Our legitimate military targets are located in Russia and we use Russian airspace to reach them,” he said.
Russian embassies in Estonia and Latvia did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone attacks against Russia, including in the Baltic area. Since March, numerous Ukrainian military drones have entered the airspace of NATO members Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all of which border Russia. The Latvian government resigned last week over its handling of the attacks.
In the statement made by the Estonian army, it was stated that the unmanned aerial vehicle coming from Russia entered the country’s airspace in Estonia at noon local time on Tuesday and entered the southeastern part of the country.
Shortly afterwards, it was shot down by a single missile by a Romanian NATO warplane during a training flight.
“The incident occurred under conditions of severe electronic warfare, including GPS spoofing and jamming by Russia,” the Estonian military added.
The statement stated that the unmanned aerial vehicle was kept under surveillance before entering Estonia and the decision was taken to shoot it down in order to “minimize the impact on the civilian population and infrastructure.”
NATO confirmed that a Romanian jet shot down a drone over Estonian airspace and said the investigation was ongoing. It was stated that NATO “is ready and capable against all kinds of potential air threats.”
According to local media reports, a weather alert in Latvia caused some panic in the border area with Russia; trains were suspended, national exams for ninth graders were halted, and grocery stores were closed.
Estonia determined that the drone shot down there belonged to Ukraine, but both Baltic states blamed Moscow for the events and said Ukraine had the right to strike Russian military targets to weaken Moscow’s ability to wage war.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, in a post on the X channel, said, “These events are the direct result of Russia’s war and provocations. Estonia is strengthening its cooperation with Ukraine to improve our air defense and anti-drone capabilities.” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that Ukraine would send experts to Latvia to help protect the country’s skies.
