{"id":87685,"date":"2026-05-26T17:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/87685\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T17:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T17:07:08","slug":"von-der-leyen-calls-for-unified-drone-alert-system-for-baltic-states-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/87685\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen calls for unified drone alert system for Baltic States \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

European Commission<\/a> president Ursula von der Leyen<\/a> has called for unified alert systems and improved cross-border co-ordination after a string of Ukrainian<\/a> drone incursions into Baltic airspace exposed gaps in Europe\u2019s defences.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Vilnius on Tuesday, von der Leyen called for a sweeping Nato-co-ordinated assessment of counter-drone and early warning systems along the alliance\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n

The three Baltic States of Lithuania<\/a>, Latvia<\/a> and Estonia<\/a>, as well as Finland<\/a> \u2013 all members of Nato \u2013 have seen a surge in Ukrainian drones straying into their airspace. Authorities said the drones were targeting Russia but veered off course due to electronic warfare jamming.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in the Baltic countries have been experiencing what many believe belonged to another era,\u201d von der Leyen said at a joint news conference with presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.<\/p>\n

\u201cAir raid alerts, families sheltering, schools closing, transport interrupted. This is the reality on Europe\u2019s eastern border in 2026,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Nato fighter jets shot down a drone over Estonia last week and Lithuania faced a separate incursion Thursday, when its leadership was forced to take shelter during an alert in Vilnius.<\/p>\n

Latvia, which has issued public drone warnings for multiple days, plans to deploy military units equipped with interceptor drones along its borders with Belarus and Russia to shoot down unmanned aerial vehicles that stray into its airspace.<\/p>\n

Officials from the Baltic States and Poland have been critical of the breaches, while stopping short of condemning Kyiv outright. Ukraine has the right to defend itself against Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, now in its fifth year, they said, adding that the incursions into allied airspace cannot continue unchecked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not isolated incidents,\u201d von der Leyen said. \u201cThis is a deliberate Russian strategy to try to destabilise our democratic societies.\u201d- Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has called for unified alert systems and improved cross-border co-ordination after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[137],"tags":[6679,2701,6099,329,7091,403],"class_list":["post-87685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-estonia","tag-latvia","tag-lithuania","tag-russia","tag-ukraine-crisis","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116641978415732649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}