Estonia asked Ukraine to be more careful with its drone routes a few days before a NATO jet shot one down over its territory. The warning had come from Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, who told the Guardian in Tallinn at the weekend that Russian jamming made the flights risky.
On Tuesday a Romanian F-16, flying for the NATO force that polices Baltic skies, brought down a drone over Estonia. The Guardian described it as the latest apparent case of Russian electronic jamming pushing long-range Ukrainian drones into alliance territory.
A local resident told the Estonian public broadcaster ERR that two fighter jets were flying in the area before a loud bang. The drone came down about 30 metres from the nearest residential building. Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said that after officials analysed its trajectory, “we decided that we need to take it down.”
Kyiv apologises, Tallinn points at Moscow
Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, offered an apology. “We apologise to Estonia and all of our Baltic friends for such unintended incidents,” he said, adding that the two sides cooperate closely to find out what happened in each case. He put the blame on Moscow. Kyiv, he said, was aiming at legitimate targets in Russia and had never tried to use Baltic airspace for its drones.
Tsahkna took the same line. “Estonia has not permitted its airspace to be used for attacks against Russia. Incidents such as this are linked to Russian jamming activities,” he said. In the weekend interview he called the situation a consequence of Russia’s war on Ukraine and “a desperate move to divide the west”. Moscow, he argued, wants the Baltic states to press Kyiv to stop because “Ukraine is hitting their lifelines.” Estonia supports Ukraine’s right to strike targets in Russia, he said, and the capitals are in constant contact.
Pevkur repeated the message to the Associated Press after the shootdown: “We’ve said to the Ukrainians all the time that if you’re attacking Russian positions or Russian targets, then these trajectories have to be as far from the Nato territory as possible.”
Latvia and the SVR
The incident follows others. Last week the Latvian government fell over a crisis that stemmed from how it handled a similar episode, in which two drones exploded at an oil storage facility.
On Tuesday, Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service said Ukraine planned drone attacks on Russia from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and warned of “just retribution”. Officials in all three countries deny any plan to let their airspace be used to launch or overfly drones. Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics wrote on X: “Russia is lying about Latvia allowing any country to use Latvian airspace and territory to launch attacks against Russia or any other country.”
