E5 Split Over Ukraine Strike Risks

Estonia's foreign minister is willing to say the quiet part aloud. Stray Ukrainian drones landing on NATO soil, Margus Tsahkna argues, may be "a price worth paying" if they help destroy Russian refineries and military bases (Zeit). Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, takes the opposite view: weapons sent by Rome to Ukraine must "never" be used outside Ukrainian territory (Reuters).

Between those two positions sits the uncomfortable reality now facing Europe's largest military powers. They are helping Ukraine build the ability to strike deeper into Russia, but they have not agreed who carries the political and physical risk when those strikes create incidents on NATO territory.

A drone gets shot down. Others don't.

On 8 June, French jets flying NATO's Baltic air-policing mission shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace near Rēzekne, close to the Russian border (LRT, NATO). The Baltic air patrol exists because Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania do not have enough fighter aircraft of their own, so other NATO members rotate through the job.

In earlier incidents over Poland and Romania, pilots tracked drones but did not fire. The debris risk was judged too high, or the threat too unclear. There was no common NATO doctrine telling them what the answer should be.

For residents of Latvia's Latgale region, or communities in eastern Poland, these are not abstract questions about alliance messaging. They live under the flight paths. They have no say in whether a pilot opens fire, and little visibility on the rules that determine that decision.

That gap, between what NATO can do and what NATO has publicly agreed to explain, is now running through a larger argument among five capitals.

Two weeks after the Latvian shootdown, the E5 group met in Berlin. The E5 brings together Europe's five largest military spenders: France, Germany, the UK, Italy and Poland. Their leaders promised to accelerate "deep precision-strike capabilities" for Ukraine (Élysée, Bundesregierung). In plain English, that means longer-range weapons. The statement did not say who manages the risk when those weapons produce incidents inside NATO borders.

Five capitals, five red lines

Estonia is at one end of the argument. Tsahkna has said Ukrainian drones occasionally falling on allied territory can be acceptable if the strikes damage Russian refineries and military bases. No other NATO government has put it that plainly in public.

Latvia accepts the military case for giving Ukraine longer-range strike power, but Riga's answer is practical rather than rhetorical. It is deploying additional radars and air-defence batteries near the Russian border (NATO). More capacity to intercept, not more political tolerance for drones going astray.

Poland backs the effect of Ukraine's drone campaign. Those attacks have forced Russia to move air-defence systems away from the front line to protect refineries in the rear (Rzeczpospolita). But Donald Tusk has also drawn his own boundary: security arrangements made without Poland will not bind Poland (gov.pl).

Germany is strengthening defence along NATO's eastern border, including a permanent brigade in Lithuania. At the same time, Berlin avoids language that would suggest German involvement in targeting decisions inside Russia (Bundesregierung).

Italy has the hardest Western European line. Tajani has said NATO should avoid giving any impression that it is entering the war (Reuters).

The authority no one claims

NATO's treaty does not settle the question. Article 5, the collective-defence clause, requires allies to treat an attack on one as an attack on all, but only after they collectively judge that an "armed attack" has taken place. Article 4 allows members to consult when they feel threatened. A stray drone, especially when its origin is unclear in the first hours, does not automatically fit either category (North Atlantic Treaty).

That leaves the rules of engagement, the orders telling a pilot when to fire, in national hands rather than alliance hands.

So France shoots down a drone over Latvia. Romania tracks one and holds fire. Poland monitors and warns. Each decision may be defensible on its own facts. Taken together, they show Moscow that NATO's eastern border does not respond consistently to the same kind of incident.

The E5 leaders have committed to giving Ukraine longer-range weapons. They have not committed to owning the risk when those weapons generate incidents on allied soil. For now, the people living closest to NATO's eastern border are absorbing a cost their governments have not publicly acknowledged, never mind put to a vote.