{"id":10681,"date":"2026-08-14T07:09:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10681\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T07:09:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:09:46","slug":"nato-jets-shoot-down-foreign-drone-after-it-enters-latvian-airspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10681\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO jets shoot down foreign drone after it enters Latvian airspace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A drone entered Latvian airspace and was shot down by Italian Eurofighter jets, the military said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An air alert was lifted after the drone was intercepted, Latvia&#8217;s military said on X. Earlier, authorities had urged people across the Baltic state to avoid going outside and seek shelter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The military did not initially identify the drone&#8217;s origin, but said a foreign drone had entered Latvian airspace as a result of Russia&#8217;s electronic warfare activity over the Balvi region. This suggested it could have been a Ukrainian drone diverted off course by Russian electronic interference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Kiev had attacked targets in north-western Russia overnight, according to Latvian media. NATO fighter jets had already shot down a stray drone over Latvia in early June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Several Ukrainian drones targeting north-western Russia have previously strayed into Latvian airspace and crashed, without causing major damage or injuries. The incidents triggered a political crisis in Latvia and led to a change of government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Shortly after taking office in late May, the new government signed an agreement with Ukraine to strengthen cooperation on drone defence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">NATO members take turns policing the airspace of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which do not have their own fighter jets. The Italian aircraft are stationed at the \u0160iauliai military air base in Lithuania.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Latvia, a NATO and European Union member with a population of about 1.9 million, borders Russia to the east.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drone entered Latvian airspace and was shot down by Italian Eurofighter jets, the military said on Friday.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[855,6531,7,160],"class_list":["post-10681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-airspace","tag-jet-fighter","tag-nato","tag-nato-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}