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 that 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 U.S.-led efforts to stop the war in Ukraine have come to nothing.
Italian F-35 fighter jets respond to Russian incursion
The Russian MIG-31 fighters entered Estonian airspace in the area of Vaindloo Island, which is a small island located in the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, the Estonian military said in a separate statement.
The aircraft did not have flight plans and their transponders were turned off, the statement said, nor were the aircraft in two-way radio communication with Estonian air traffic services.
Italian Air Force F-35 fighter jets, currently deployed as part of the NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission, responded to the incident, according to the statement.
“Russia’s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure,” Tsakhna, the foreign minister, said.
The Russian charge d’affaires was summoned and given a protest note, a ministry statement said.
