Tallinn: Estonia summoned a Russian diplomat to protest after three Russian fighter aircraft entered its airspace without permission Friday and stayed there for 12 minutes, the Foreign Ministry said, just over a week after NATO planes downed Russian drones over Poland and heightened fears that the war in Ukraine could spill over.
Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna said Russia violated Estonian airspace four times this year “but today’s incursion, involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen”. Russian officials did not immediately comment.
Russia’s violation of Poland’s airspace was the most serious cross-border incident into a NATO member country since the war in Ukraine began with Russia’s all-out invasion in February 2022. Other alliance countries have reported similar incursions and drone crashes on their territory.
The developments have increasingly rattled European governments as US-led efforts to stop the war in Ukraine have come to nothing. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Friday’s incursion “an extremely dangerous provocation” that “further escalates tensions in the region”. Estonia, along with other Baltic states Lithuania and Latvia, are seen as being among the most likely targets if Russia one day decides to risk an attack on NATO.