Stray drones have become the Baltic states' main air-defence test

The most pressing security problem in the Baltic states this autumn is not a Russian armoured column. It is a steady trickle of long-range drones that stray across the border at night while Ukraine strikes Russian oil ports on the Gulf of Finland and Russia tries to jam them. None of the incidents so far has killed anyone. Yet since March they have damaged a power station and a fuel depot, forced repeated air-raid alerts, and brought down a government in Riga. The Baltic states are learning that a war next door can reach them without anyone aiming at them, and that their air defences were built for a different threat.

What has happened since March

The pattern was set on 25 March, when a drone from Russian airspace struck the chimney of a power station at Auvere in north-eastern Estonia and another crashed in Latvia's Krāslava region. Ukraine had struck the Russian port of Ust-Luga that night. Estonia's foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, said the incident was not directed at Estonia but was a consequence of Russia's war. Latvia's prime minister, Evika Siliņa, said there were indications the drone might be Ukrainian.

The most serious incident came on 7 May, when two drones entered Latvia from Russia and hit an empty fuel depot in Rēzekne, about 40 km from the border, damaging four storage tanks. No one was hurt, but schools closed and alerts were issued in three municipalities. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said investigations showed the drones were Ukrainian and that the incident was the result of Russian electronic warfare deliberately diverting them from their targets in Russia.

The incidents have continued since. On 14 August an Italian Eurofighter flying from Šiauliai under NATO's Baltic air-policing mission shot down a drone over Rugāji in Latvia's Balvi district, supported by Turkish F-16s from Ämari. Latvia's new defence minister, Raivis Melnis, later said the drone had entered from Belarus and was likely Ukrainian and sent off course by Russian countermeasures. On 1 September Estonia's air force commander, Brigadier General Riivo Valge, said about a dozen drones had been detected near the border during a large Ukrainian attack on western Russia. One turned back before reaching Narva; another crossed into south-eastern Estonia, and alerts were extended to eight regions. Latvia issued a red warning in Alūksne the same night.

Why the drones keep arriving

The geography explains most of it. Ukrainian drones heading for Primorsk and Ust-Luga fly long routes over north-western Russia, close to the Estonian and Latvian borders. When Russian jamming or spoofing interferes with their navigation, some drift west. That is the explanation given by Kyiv and, in more cautious terms, by Baltic officials. Melnis put it plainly: Ukraine keeps striking targets in Russia and Russia keeps taking countermeasures, so the risk of drones flying in remains.

Moscow reads the same events differently. On 4 July Russia's deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Galuzin, told RIA Novosti that Russia had verified data showing Latvia and the other Baltic states had provided air corridors for Ukrainian drones that attacked Russian civilian infrastructure. Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia's Security Council, has said that if such deliberate provision were confirmed, Moscow would regard it as grounds for self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The three Baltic foreign ministers rejected the claim in a joint statement on 10 April, saying their states had never allowed their territory or airspace to be used for drone attacks on Russia, and Baltic diplomats in Moscow repeated that position in a demarche in July. No evidence for the corridor claim has been made public. The disagreement matters less for what it says about the past than for what it implies about risk: a state that believes its neighbour's airspace is being used against it has, by its own account, a pretext to act.

The political cost in Latvia

The Rēzekne incident showed how quickly a technical gap can become a political one. Siliņa dismissed her defence minister, Andris Sprūds, saying anti-drone equipment had not been deployed fast enough. His Progressive party then withdrew from the coalition and Siliņa resigned on 14 May, only months before a scheduled parliamentary election. An internal inspection later found that the problems on 7 May were mainly the absence or limited operation of early-warning systems and interceptors, and did not hold any individual responsible. Andris Kulbergs became prime minister, and Melnis, an army colonel, took over the defence ministry. The argument over interceptor procurement has continued between the new prime minister and Sprūds.

Fighters are the wrong tool for the job

NATO air policing has worked in the narrow sense: jets launch and, when necessary, shoot. But scrambling fighters against a single slow drone is expensive and slow to arrange, and it depends on radar coverage good enough to track small, low-flying targets. Estonia's defence forces declined to publish the route of the 1 September drone, citing the risk of revealing surveillance coverage, while residents of Põlva, about 35 km from the border, reported hearing it overhead. That discrepancy is a reminder of how thin low-altitude detection still is.

The Baltic governments have drawn this conclusion themselves. In March their defence ministers pledged to prioritise air defence, drone and counter-drone systems and acoustic sensors. In July Melnis said Latvia wanted its whole eastern border covered by automated counter-drone systems by the end of September, with fighters as the second means of destruction after ground-based systems. He also acknowledged that radars and command systems still had to be bought and integrated. Whether that deadline holds is the next test.

The cost of false alarms

The final complication is that heightened alert produces false alarms. On 13 September Vilnius airport closed for 38 minutes after radar picked up what was thought to be a drone; a NATO jet from Šiauliai identified it as a flock of birds. Lithuania's crisis management centre noted that radar returns from birds and drones can look alike. Each false alarm has a cost in disrupted flights and public attention, and too many of them erode trust in warnings that matter.

What to watch

Three things will show whether the Baltic states are closing the gap. The first is whether Latvia's automated border coverage is in place by the end of September and whether Estonia and Lithuania follow with comparable systems. The second is interception practice: a shift from fighters to ground-based and drone interceptors would lower the cost per engagement. The third is the diplomatic track. As long as Ukraine's campaign against Russian Baltic ports continues and Russia continues to jam, drones will keep straying. Clear, public attribution of each incident, based on recovered debris, is the best way to keep a navigational accident from being read as a deliberate act by any side.

Sources

• ERR News — Drone crossed Estonia's border in southeast, says air force commander
• Cyprus Mail — Lithuania closes Vilnius airport, NATO summons jets in response to possible drone
• LSM — Drone that was shot down in Latvia entered from Belarus
• LSM — Latvia's eastern border drone defences ready by end of September
• Defense News — Ukrainian drone strike on empty Baltic fuel depot prompts top-level resignation in Latvia
• The Irish Times — Latvian government collapses over Russia-bound Ukrainian drones
• Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs — Joint statement by the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
• RIA Novosti — Прибалты давали воздушные коридоры для ударов ВСУ по России, заявил Галузин (4 July 2026)
• Security Council of the Russian Federation — Об ударах украинских БПЛА со стороны стран Прибалтики (16 April 2026)