{"id":10794,"date":"2026-08-14T16:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10794\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:15:13","slug":"foreign-drone-over-latvia-shot-down-by-nato-jets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/10794\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign drone over Latvia shot down by NATO jets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Latvian military said a drone that entered the country&#8217;s airspace overnight was shot down by NATO Baltic Air Policing jets. File Photo by Valda Kalnina\/EPA<\/p>\n<p>Aug. 14 (UPI) &#8212; The Latvian military said a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/topic\/drones\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Drones\" class=\"tpstyle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">drone<\/a> that entered the country&#8217;s airspace overnight was shot down by NATO Baltic Air Policing jets.<\/p>\n<p>The country&#8217;s armed forces reported <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Latvijas_armija\/status\/2088070405466529903\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">on X<\/a> that the unmanned aerial vehicle entered the country&#8217;s airspace near the Russian boarder overnight, triggering air raid sirens in the municipalities of Aug\u0161daugava, Prei\u013ci, R\u0113zekne and Balvi about 4 a.m. local time.\n<\/p>\n<p>NATO scrambled Italian Eurofighters based in Lithuania and Turkish F-16s based in Estonia, and the drone was <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Latvijas_armija\/status\/2088078755503743210\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">successfully downed<\/a> near the village of Rug\u0101ji.<\/p>\n<p>Sandra Kapteine, head of the Rug\u0101ji village administration, told the Latvian Information Agency that the drone was shot down in a wooded area and there were no injuries resulting from the incident, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/nato-jets-shoot-down-drone-over-latvia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Politico reported.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Latvian National Armed Forces <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mod.gov.lv\/lv\/zinas\/latvijas-gaisa-telpa-sabiedroto-iznicinataji-notrieca-arvalstu-bezpilota-lidaparatu-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in a news release<\/a> said the foreign drone entered Latvian airspace &#8220;as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The release cautioned that similar incidents could happen in the near future.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While the Russian aggression in Ukraine is ongoing, the recurrence of such cases when a foreign unmanned aircraft enters or approaches Latvian airspace is possible,&#8221; officials wrote.\n<\/p>\n<p>Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AndrisKulbergs\/status\/2088130986210968046\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">wrote on X<\/a> that the incident serves as &#8220;a confirmation that Latvian airspace is protected.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the same time, such incidents remind us that we must continue to strengthen the surveillance and anti-drone capabilities of Latvia&#8217;s eastern border in order to be able to detect, identify and neutralize any potential threat as quickly as possible,&#8221; Kulbergs wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Then incident led Finland <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/08\/14\/nato-drone-latvia.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">to temporarily restrict<\/a> airspace early Friday, but the Finnish Defense Forces said no drones entered the country&#8217;s airspace and the restrictions were lifted shortly after 7 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>A drone previously entered Latvian airspace in June, was similarly shot down by NATO allies. The Latvian National Armed Forces <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mod.gov.lv\/lv\/zinas\/latvijas-gaisa-telpa-sabiedroto-iznicinataji-notrieca-arvalstu-bezpilota-lidaparatu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">said that incident was also<\/a> &#8220;a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Historic-August-moments-through-the-years_1_1.jpg\" style=\"width: 100%;\" width=\"648\" height=\"431\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famed &#8220;I Have a Dream&#8221; speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech galvanized the nation&#8217;s civil rights movements and led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. File photo by UPI | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/News_Photos\/lp\/061b525d8199863ee961b54d5ad8e9cc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">License Photo<\/a>\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Latvian military said a drone that entered the country&#8217;s airspace overnight was shot down by NATO Baltic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[60,13,2214,538],"class_list":["post-10794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defense","tag-drones","tag-top-news","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10794","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=10794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}