Romanian F-16 Downs Drone Over Estonia

At 11.03am on May 19, NATO scrambled fighters from Šiauliai in Lithuania. A drone had crossed into Estonian airspace from Russia. At 12.14pm, a Romanian F-16 pilot opened fire. The UAV came down in farmland near Põltsamaa, 30 metres from the nearest house. It was the first time a NATO fighter had destroyed a drone in Baltic airspace since Russia's full-scale war began (Romania Insider, Estonian Defence Forces).

Two days later, the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania asked NATO to make that response the rule, not the exception. They want Baltic Air Policing, now a peacetime watch mission, upgraded into a full air-defence mandate with rules allowing shoot-downs and counter-drone systems based on their territory (ERR). That change needs unanimous consent from all 32 NATO members. It lands just as Washington is signalling further troop withdrawals from Europe.

How Russia turns Ukrainian drones into a NATO problem

Most of the drones are Ukrainian. Kyiv's long-range strike UAVs target Russian oil infrastructure near the Baltic borders, mainly the Ust-Luga and Primorsk terminal complexes in Russia's Leningrad region. Russian electronic warfare units then jam GPS signals or feed in false coordinates, pushing the drones off course and into NATO territory. Ukraine has acknowledged and apologised for this. Estonia's defence minister said the F-16 most likely hit "a Ukrainian drone that had veered off course" under heavy electronic interference.

The physical drone is only half the operation. On May 18, Russia's SVR intelligence service claimed Ukrainian drone operators were stationed at Latvian military bases and threatened strikes on Latvian "decision-making centres." Latvia, Ukraine, and the US rejected the claims (ISW). Belarus then filed a diplomatic protest claiming a drone had entered its airspace from Lithuania, days after its own military had warned Lithuania by hotline about a drone moving the other way. Lithuania called the protest "direct proof of Belarusian complicity in Russia's information attack".

The pattern is clear. Russian electronic warfare diverts Ukrainian drones into NATO airspace. Russian intelligence then uses the incidents as evidence that the Baltic states are attacking Russia. The drone incidents came in the same week as an unannounced Russian nuclear exercise on May 19, including missile launches from Belarusian territory (Defense News). Drones, disinformation, and nuclear signalling arrived together on NATO's eastern flank.

Three countries, three system failures

Latvia's coalition collapsed on May 14 after a botched response to a drone strike on an oil depot in Rēzekne (LSM). It was the first government of a NATO member to fall as a direct result of drone-related hybrid warfare. Prime minister Andris Kulbergs formed a replacement coalition six days later, still untested. The sharper detail is this: Ukraine had offered the Baltic states a drone radar and detection programme. Estonia accepted. Latvia turned it down. The drone that hit Rēzekne arrived undetected.

Lithuania's civil defence failed three times in five days. The emergency app LT72 crashed under user pressure on May 20, showed outdated data on May 21, and failed again on May 22. Shelters in Vilnius were locked. Sirens did not sound. The president and prime minister were moved to bunkers.

Estonia's radar picked up the May 19 drone before it entered the country. But Estonia has no fighter jets of its own. Without the Romanian pilot already airborne on a training sortie, the drone would have kept going.

What Ankara decides

Turning the Baltic mission from policing into defence needs a formal decision by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's permanent governing body, where any one ally can block a decision. The next realistic moment is the Ankara Summit on July 7-8.

NATO's supreme commander, General Grynkewich, confirmed on May 19 that Europe "should absolutely expect additional redeployments" of US troops. The layered detection and command systems the Baltics need still depend on American architecture. European alternatives are being built: Poland is developing 18 counter-drone batteries, and Latvia hosts NATO's first C-UAS innovation range. None of that protects Baltic skies today.

The European Parliament expressed "full solidarity" on May 21. Solidarity is not a radar network. Ankara will show whether 32 allies are ready to pay for the hardware behind the words, at the same time as the country underwriting NATO's air-defence architecture is edging back from Europe.