NATO fighters shot down a drone over eastern Latvia on Friday in an incident the country's armed forces linked to Russian electronic warfare.
The drone was destroyed over the Balvi region by aircraft taking part in NATO's Baltic Air patrol mission, according to CNBC. Latvia said airspace alerts were issued across several eastern and southern regions and lifted at 4:50 a.m. local time. Latvia described the downed aircraft as "a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle" that had "flown into Latvia as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare."
Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs responded on X, saying "This is a confirmation that Latvian airspace is protected." He added that "such incidents remind us that we must continue to strengthen the surveillance and anti-drone capabilities of Latvia's eastern border in order to be able to detect, identify and neutralize any potential threat as quickly as possible."
Kulbergs took office in May after Latvia's previous government collapsed amid a political dispute over its response to drone incursions. Latvia is an EU and NATO member that borders Russia and has faced repeated instances of drones entering its airspace during Russia's war in Ukraine. Some of those drones have been Ukrainian aircraft knocked off course by Russian electronic warfare, including the jamming of navigation signals. That jamming can make flight paths unpredictable and complicate decisions about whether and where to shoot the drones down.
NATO allies as recently as June shot down another drone over Latvian territory that its armed forces also attributed to Russian electromagnetic warfare.
After Friday's incident, Finland temporarily restricted airspace and a sea area in the eastern Gulf of Finland as a precaution. The Finnish Defence Forces said no drones entered the country, and the restrictions were lifted shortly after 7 a.m. local time. Finland joined NATO in April 2023 after decades of military nonalignment.
Latvia's Ministry of Defense said in a statement Friday that "as long as Russia's aggression against Ukraine continues, similar incidents involving foreign unmanned aerial vehicles entering or approaching Latvian airspace may occur."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that Russia would "further intensify our methods of destroying everything supplied by the West that fuels Kyiv's war machine," according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned earlier in the week that Putin was preparing to escalate the war and called on allies to increase sanctions pressure on Moscow and provide Ukraine with additional air defense support.
