23:30, Tuesday: air-raid warnings sound in eastern Latvia. 02:30, Wednesday: a third drone crosses into Latvia from Lithuania and flies the length of the country. Before dawn: NATO fighter jets are in the air, Finland has closed part of its airspace, and hundreds of thousands of people across the Baltic states have been told to seek shelter. By morning it was over — no injuries, no wreckage, no answers.
The Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia withdrew a flurry of overnight alerts on Wednesday after unidentified drones entered or approached their airspace from the direction of Russia or Belarus, officials and media said. NATO air defence fighter jets assigned to the Baltic Air Policing mission were activated, and residents in several regions were urged to move indoors and stay away from windows until the threat passed.
Latvia’s military said three drones had entered its airspace during the night. Two briefly crossed the country’s eastern border, remaining inside Latvian territory for a minute or two. A third entered from Lithuania, travelled north across the country and continued towards Estonia. Latvian air defence units and NATO jets were activated, but the military said the conditions required to destroy the aircraft were not present while it crossed Latvian territory, with civilian safety forming part of the assessment.
In Lithuania, the picture was less clear. The national crisis management centre said three drones had been detected near the border with Belarus but that none had entered Lithuanian territory — while other reports said fighters made two unsuccessful attempts to bring down a drone near the northern town of Biržai, and debris from a NATO missile was later found on the ground. Lithuania’s prime minister, Mindaugas Sinkevičius, called it a “difficult night” and said four drones had been detected across the region. One alert covered Kaunas, the country’s second-largest city, home to about 300,000 people.
Estonia issued warnings in eight counties, first in the south and then in the north, and Finland imposed temporary restrictions on airspace and maritime traffic in the eastern Gulf of Finland after a suspected incursion of about five minutes. The alerts were lifted hours later in all four countries.
Why this matters
The incursions came as Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign against Russian targets reached a new intensity. On Monday, a Ukrainian drone struck the Kirishi oil refinery near St Petersburg — Russia’s second-largest fuel processing plant — setting it on fire and killing a woman in the surrounding area. Russia said its air defences had shot down 146 drones over the Leningrad region, and flames from a strike on the Ust-Luga oil port were visible from the Estonian city of Narva, across the water.
Whose drones crossed into NATO airspace, and why, is disputed. Kyiv has blamed Russian electronic jamming for knocking some of its drones off course. Moscow has accused Kyiv of exploiting NATO airspace to shield its attacks. Neither claim has been independently verified, and the drones’ origin remains unknown.
What is not in doubt is the pattern. In recent months, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly entered the airspace of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — a spillover that turns every Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Baltic coast into a potential air-defence emergency for four NATO members. The alliance’s jets were scrambled, its warning systems worked, and nobody was hurt. But each incident narrows the margin for error: a drone that strays is one thing; a missile fired at one, falling on a town, is another. That is how modern missiles and drones are changing warfare — and how quickly a war fought in one country can fill the skies of its neighbours.
