{"id":10751,"date":"2026-08-14T12:13:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10751\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T12:13:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:13:28","slug":"nato-jets-shoot-down-foreign-drone-after-it-enters-latvian-airspace-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10751\/","title":{"rendered":"Nato jets shoot down foreign drone after it enters Latvian airspace"},"content":{"rendered":"

A drone entered Latvian airspace and was shot down by Italian Eurofighter jets, the military said on Friday. The decision to shoot it down was taken to avert a threat to Latvia\u2019s population, Defence Minister Raivis Melnis said.<\/p>\n

An air alert was lifted after the drone was intercepted, Latvia\u2019s military said on social media, after authorities had urged people across the Baltic state to avoid going outside and seek shelter.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Latvia\u2019s military said the drone was shot down over a forested area. There were no injuries or damage to property. Emergency services are operating at the crash site, she said on Latvian television.<\/p>\n

The military did not initially identify the drone\u2019s origin, but said a foreign drone had entered Latvian airspace as a result of Russia\u2019s 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

Melnis said it is currently not possible to determine the origin and type of the drone that was shot down. Drone debris would first have to be found and examined, he said.<\/p>\n

Nato responded to the airspace incursion with Italian Eurofighter jets based in Lithuania and Turkish F-16 jets based in Estonia, Nato<\/a> spokeswoman Allison Hart said on social media.\"ServicemenServicemen of the Latvian National Guard walk on a field as they search for the debris from an intercepted drone in Rugaji, Latvia, on Friday. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A drone entered Latvian airspace and was shot down by Italian Eurofighter jets, the military said on Friday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3001,293,6572,68,151,182,358,69,70,7,12,20,6573,71],"class_list":["post-10751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-allison-hart","tag-baltic","tag-balvi","tag-estonia","tag-european-union","tag-italy","tag-kyiv","tag-latvia","tag-lithuania","tag-nato","tag-romania","tag-russia","tag-siauliai","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10751","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=10751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}