NATO scrambles warplanes to shoot down drone over Latvia

Ukraine was carrying out a major UAV raid against Russia’s Leningrad region at the time

A NATO fighter jet has destroyed a drone that entered Latvian airspace, the US-led bloc has said.

The announcement came as Ukraine carried out a major UAV attack against Russia’s northwestern Leningrad Region on Friday. A total of 54 drones were shot down or intercepted above the region overnight, local governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said. A fire broke out at the key Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga during the raid, but it was swiftly extinguished, according to the governor.

There have been multiple reports in recent months of Ukrainian drones violating the airspace of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland, or crashing inside those countries, while on their way to Russia.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said on Friday that “this morning, we saw Italian Eurofighters based in Lithuania and Turkish F-16s out of Estonia scramble, with one Eurofighter downing a drone over Latvian airspace.”

The Latvian Defense Ministry also confirmed the incident, saying in a statement that “fighter jets participating in the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission successfully shot down a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle.”

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The ministry claimed that 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 said Moscow had “verified data,” showing that Baltic states had provided air corridors for Ukrainian drones attacking Russian civilian infrastructure. The governments in Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius denied Galuzin’s accusations as “completely unfounded.”

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said 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.

READ MORE: Moscow rebuffs Baltic protest over Ukrainian drones

Moscow previously warned that if Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania knowingly help to facilitate Ukrainian drone strikes, Russia could consider them complicit in the attacks and would have the right to self-defense under the UN Charter.