confirmed<\/a> that the drones that struck Latvia were sent by his country, though not aimed at the Baltic republic. The fact that the drones missed their targets and crashed in friendly territory instead, he said, \u201cwas the result of Russian electronic warfare deliberately diverting Ukrainian drones from their targets in Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/25C6HCN52BHEFO652BYCVM2JKY.jpg\")
Latvia’s then-defense minister, Andris Spruds, takes part in a panel discussion during the Defence 24 Days conference on May 6, 2026, in Warsaw, Poland. (Photo by Omar Marques\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
When a series of drones hit all three Baltic states earlier this year, there had been speculation that Russian electronic warfare may be to blame, and that Russia was deliberately re-routing the aircraft \u201cback to sender\u201d \u2212 but toward Europe.<\/p>\n
The new statement by a top Ukrainian official provides the strongest public confirmation yet that this is a tactic employed by Moscow. <\/p>\n
So far, there have been no deaths or injuries reported from wayward Ukrainian drones, but the accidental air strikes have laid bare the inadequate state of air defense even at NATO\u2019s most exposed frontier, with the lack of fatalities seemingly mostly a matter of luck.<\/p>\n
In Thursday\u2019s strike, which took place 40 kilometers into Latvian territory from the Russian border, four empty oil storage tanks were damaged, and firefighters had to extinguish a smoldering area of around 30 square meters. Schools in R\u0113zekne were closed, air raid alerts were declared across three municipalities, and residents reported hearing explosions. French NATO Baltic Air Policing jets were scrambled during the alert.<\/p>\n
Latvian officials initially said the drones were not shot down because the safety of civilians and infrastructure could not be guaranteed. Spr\u016bds then reversed that stance entirely, saying: \u201cDrones must be shot down \u2014 that\u2019s the responsibility of the head of the Armed Forces and myself, as the political leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
As in March, the Baltic states have used the incident to call for stronger air defense measures. Latvia and Lithuania jointly called on NATO to boost regional air defenses in the wake of the May 7 strike, with Lithuania\u2019s defense minister Robertas Kaunas appealing to NATO that \u201cStrengthening anti-drone defense in our region should be a particular emphasis, and additional capabilities are welcome here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linus H\u00f6ller is Defense News’ Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master\u2019s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIENNA \u2014 Latvia\u2019s minister of defense has resigned following a renewed incursion of Ukrainian drones into the country\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[16650,1432,194,2941,1431,2298,16651,8,7938,9,790,16652,7,536,1427],"class_list":{"0":"post-27242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-baltic-nations","9":"tag-circulated-c4isrnet","10":"tag-circulated-defense-news","11":"tag-defense-news","12":"tag-dn-dnr","13":"tag-drone-strike","14":"tag-electronic-warfare","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-latvia","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-spoofing","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-unmanned"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116556422493635677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}