Romanian F-16 Exposes NATO Firing Gap

The first shot in the two-decade history of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission came from a Romanian jet over Estonia. On 19 May, an F-16 from the "Carpathian Vipers" detachment fired an air-to-air missile at a drone drifting through Estonian airspace (Digi24). The drone was Ukrainian-made and had probably been pushed off course by Russian electronic jamming. It broke apart over Lake Võrtsjärv. Estonia’s defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, later acknowledged that "risks always remain" in such engagements (ERR). Three days later, the pilot was decorated.

The following day, Lithuania had its own scare. An unidentified object triggered air raid sirens across Vilnius, grounded flights and sent the Lithuanian president to a shelter. It was never identified or recovered. Hours later, Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, told the Security Council that "NATO will not save" the Baltic states and named specific Latvian military bases as targets (fakti.bg). Two incidents, two threats, 48 hours, and still no common NATO protocol for dealing with them.

Five Countries, Five Improvisations

The pattern along NATO’s eastern flank is not collective defence in the clean textbook sense. It is a set of national improvisations, each shaped by local radars, budgets, politics and tolerance for risk. Romania has recorded 14 unauthorised drone entries into its airspace since January, with military radars struggling to track objects flying below 50 metres (Hotnews). Lithuania raised its alert sensitivity, but had spent only €2.48 million of a €25 million civil defence budget. Shelters at Vilnius airport were locked (Lrytas).

Estonia has gone furthest politically. Its foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, told NATO counterparts in Helsingborg on 22 May that Russia is "guiding these drones to NATO territory" (Ukrainska Pravda). He did not offer new public evidence. Asked the same question by Lithuanian broadcaster LRT, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said he had "no information" to support the claim. That gap between what frontline governments are prepared to say and what NATO headquarters will confirm is now part of the problem.

Poland has taken another route. It rejected Germany’s European Sky Shield Initiative and is building its own anti-drone system, SAN: 18 batteries, over 700 vehicles, with first deliveries due this year and part of the cost covered through SAFE, an EU defence loan programme (Bankier). France, while deploying Rafale fighters to Lithuania, has kept quiet on Baltic demands and instead pushed its own "dronisation" doctrine through Admiral Vandier at NATO’s transformation command (Le Monde).

The Authority Gap Before Ankara

The Baltic presidents are now asking NATO to change the legal character of the mission. On 21 May, they demanded that Baltic Air Policing become a full Air Defence Mission (Aerotime). Air Policing is a peacetime surveillance arrangement: pilots watch, intercept and identify, but any decision to engage normally needs political sign-off from a national capital. An Air Defence Mission would give NATO commanders pre-approved rules to neutralise threats.

That distinction decides who actually pulls the trigger. When the Romanian F-16 fired at the drone over Estonia, command passed from NATO to Romanian national authority before the pilot could launch the missile. Under an Air Defence Mission, that authority would be delegated in advance to NATO’s command chain. In a slow-moving committee room, the difference sounds procedural. In the cockpit, with a drone crossing a border, it is the whole question.

Rutte called the transition "the logical next step" at a summit of nine eastern-flank leaders in Bucharest on 13 May (NATO). But the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s decision-making body where all 32 allies must agree, has not issued a binding directive. A doctrine working group met in Helsinki in mid-May and announced no public outcome (Finnish MoD). A vetted pool of 18 counter-drone systems is being assembled (Defense News). Neither move answers the operational question: who can shoot, and when?

That is what makes the Ankara Summit on 7-8 July more than another alliance diary entry. Moscow appears to understand the timing. Nebenzia’s claim that Russian intelligence knows "the coordinates of decision-making centers in Latvia" (The News) went beyond routine deterrence into targeting language. At the same time, Putin launched large-scale nuclear exercises.

Whether Russia is deliberately pushing Ukrainian drones into NATO airspace or simply exploiting the confusion when they arrive, the effect is the same. Every unresolved incursion exposes the distance between NATO’s collective defence promise and the mechanics of acting on it in real time. The alliance has six weeks before Ankara to narrow that distance. The object over Vilnius, which Lithuania’s crisis centre said could have been "a drone designed to deceive systems," was never found.