Estonia Downs Drone, Romania Holds Fire

On 19 May, NATO fighters shot down a drone over Estonia, the first interception in the country's history (Polsat News). That same night, Russian drones hit the Ukrainian port of Izmail, just across the Danube from Romania. Bucharest sent up two F-16s, tracked the attack on radar, and warned civilians (Hotnews). It did not shoot.

Five days earlier, Latvia's government had collapsed after drone crashes on its territory exposed serious gaps in air defence (Le Monde). The same threat is now producing different answers across NATO's eastern edge: intercept, monitor, legislate, bargain, or wait.

No Common Rules for Peacetime Skies

NATO has no single peacetime rulebook for shooting down drones. Its classified rules of engagement apply to NATO-tasked forces and put de-escalation ahead of kinetic response. When national forces operate over their own territory, they sit outside NATO command. Each state therefore needs its own law allowing a shoot-down. Many still do not have one.

Romania shows what that legal gap means in practice. Bucharest passed shoot-down legislation in 2025 and, on 15 May, authorised pilots to fire on Russian aircraft entering Romanian airspace. Four days later, its F-16s went up and came back without firing. Since 2022, at least 66 Russian drones have crossed into Romanian airspace. None has been shot down. At the B9 summit, the Bucharest Nine grouping of eastern NATO members, allies asked Romania why. They received no answer.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte put his finger on the cost problem at the same summit: "We cannot continue taking out $20,000 costing drones with 3 or 4 million costing missiles". Operation Eastern Sentry, launched in September 2025 after drones entered Polish airspace, improves monitoring. It does not give countries a common authority to fire.

For Malta, outside NATO but inside the EU security debate, this matters because European defence is no longer only about formal alliances. The question is what Europe can actually do when the threat is below the threshold of war but above routine policing.

Five Countries, Five Calculations

In Slovakia, President Pellegrini demanded urgent legislation allowing the military to intercept drones in peacetime, calling for a legal "threat state" between peace and war. Prime Minister Fico refused to convene the security council, saying it was unnecessary. He had returned from Moscow two days before drones hit targets dozens of kilometres from Slovak villages.

Hungary treated drone defence as leverage. The Magyar Péter government turned attacks near Transcarpathia into pressure for an 11-point minority rights demand on Ukraine, making defence cooperation conditional on Kyiv's treatment of ethnic Hungarians, according to Euronews.

Bulgaria signed the B9 joint declaration but sent only its NATO ambassador, the lowest representation among the nine members. Days later, Sofia refused to back the Special Tribunal for Russian aggression against Ukraine, joining only Hungary, Slovakia, and Malta in abstaining (BNR).

That Maltese abstention sits awkwardly in a wider European pattern. It places Malta with governments that are either hedging on Russia or reluctant to harden the legal response to the invasion. For a neutral country, abstention may be presented as caution. In practice, it is also a signal.

Poland is taking the opposite route and building its own capacity. Its Shield East fortification programme covers 260 km of the eastern border with integrated counter-drone systems (Polish Ministry of Defence), rather than waiting for NATO to settle common rules.

What the B9 Summit Didn't Produce

The summit's joint statement called Russia the "most significant, long-term and direct threat" and pledged to work towards defence spending of 5% of GDP by 2035 (NATO). It did not produce binding counter-drone targets. It did not produce common rules on when to shoot.

Without those rules, Russia can keep testing the same weak points. Latvia's government fell. Slovakia split politically. Romania absorbed repeated violations without firing. Hungary bargained. Bulgaria kept its profile low. Malta abstained on the tribunal. Poland built defences.

The pattern is the point. Russia's drone campaign is not only about the damage done in Ukraine or the risk of debris landing across a border. It is also a test of whether European states respond as a system or as 27 separate political calculations. So far, the answer is closer to the second.