Estonian air force: Russian drone crash in Latvia no cause for NATO jets response
A Russian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which entered Latvian airspace via Belarus on Saturday, subsequently crashing, was an incident which likely did not require deploying NATO jets in response, an Estonian Air Force (Õhuvägi) spokesperson has said.
Air Force spokesperson Siim Verner Teder told ERR: "An unidentified aircraft being detected first means various factors are analyzed, and then a tactical decision gets made on the deployment of air policing fighters."
"In this case, to our knowledge, this need was not seen," he added.
Teder said that in peacetime conditions, an unknown aircraft – be it a drone or a human-piloted plane or helicopter – the strict recommendation is that a visual identification is carried out, and that identification is done from the air, ie. from a friendly aircraft.
"This ensures that the target is indeed a military one," he noted.
A Shahed-type drone operated by Russia crashed in Latvia's eastern Rezekne region, after entering that country's airspace from Belarus early on Saturday morning.
The UAV and its crash site was immediately located since it had been tracked by Latvian air defense systems as soon as it crossed the border.
Leonids Kalninš, commander of the Latvia's armed forces, said the UAV was not directly aimed at Latvia, but instead at Ukraine.
Latvian defense forces are conducting an investigation to determine whether the UAV crashed or its own systems caused it to land.
Latvia's Minister of Defense Andris Spruds (Progressives) told Latvian Television's "Morning Panorama" show on Tuesday that an investigation had been launched not only into the case, but also into "whether alternatives could have been considered," adding that there were certain challenges in identifying drones, LSM reported.
A similar incident in Romania on the very same day resulted in two F-16 jet fighters being scrambled, Reuters reported Sunday.
In this case the drone did not crash land, and later exited Romanian airspace. Romania shares a 650-km border with Ukraine and has had Russian drone fragments stray into its territory repeatedly over the past year.
The German Air Force currently holds the NATO Baltic air policing mission based at Lielvarde Air Base in Latvia, while facilities at its usual home, Ämari, in Estonia, are being upgraded. The NATO mission also flies out of Šiauliai, Lithuania.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Mait Ots
