NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace, the country\u2019s defence ministry confirmed Friday, followed by an announcement from the military.\n<\/p>\n
The interception came against a backdrop of heightened concern in Europe over unauthorised drone activity, as the Russia-Ukraine war grinds on more than four years.\n<\/p>\n
NATO \u201cfighter jets have successfully shot down a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle that had entered Latvia as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare,\u201d the ministry wrote on X.\n<\/p>\n
The threat had ended, the armed forces said in a post on X, adding that allied fighter jets successfully destroyed the unmanned aerial vehicle that entered the NATO member state\u2019s airspace.<\/p>\n
The EU and NATO member state of about 1.9 million inhabitants shares a border with Russia to the east.\n<\/p>\n
It and other countries along the alliance\u2019s Eastern flank have experienced\u00a0numerous\u00a0drone incursions into its territory.\n<\/p>\n
Baltic Sea neighbour Finland also imposed temporary aviation and maritime restrictions in the eastern Gulf of Finland on Friday, its defence forces said on X.<\/p>\n
It described the move as a precautionary measure aimed at ensuring the safety of bystanders and the operational capabilities of authorities to counter potential drones.\n<\/p>\n
Hours later, the governor of Russia\u2019s northwest Leningrad region said air defences had shot down 54 Ukrainian drones.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cA fire broke out at the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga following the attack,\u201d regional Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said on Telegram.\n<\/p>\n
On Monday, French fighter jets deployed to NATO\u2019s Baltic Air Policing mission shot down a drone in Latvia, marking the first time the alliance\u2019s rapid-reaction force has downed a stray drone over the country.\n<\/p>\n
German authorities last week found an explosives-laden drone at Leipzig airport, while operations at Hanover airport were disrupted after a drone entered restricted airspace, officials told AFP on Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace, the country\u2019s defence ministry confirmed Friday, followed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[855,621,677,201,69,66,7,67],"class_list":["post-10757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-airspace","tag-baltic-air-policing","tag-drone","tag-european-security","tag-latvia","tag-military","tag-nato","tag-russia-ukraine-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10757","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=10757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}