Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has condemned violations of NATO airspace and called for strengthening air defence in the Baltic countries following the crash of a Russian military drone in Latvia on Saturday.
“Lithuania condemns Russia’s violations of the NATO air space and stands with affected Allies,” Nausėda posted on X on Sunday.
“The new incident in Latvia shows we must strengthen the air defence of the Baltic states. The rotational air defence model must be implemented as agreed upon at the Vilnius Summit,” he added.
An unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in the Rēzekne region on Saturday, the Latvian Defence Ministry reported.
According to the initial data, this was a Russian drone of military significance and, according to the information available to the National Armed Forces, it flew into Latvian airspace from Belarus.
According to the Latvian ministry, the State Police and the National Armed Forces continue to investigate the circumstances of the incident, which was reported to NATO allies and respective EU authorities.
Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže said that a representative of the Russian Embassy had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Monday.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine requires us not to lose vigilance. Today, a similar incident happened in Romania. We are vigilant, decisive, cool-minded, weighing our next steps, involving allies,” she said in a press release.
Fellow NATO member Romania said on Sunday that a Russian attack drone targeting civilian infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine had entered its airspace.
Bucharest strongly condemned the “renewed violation: brought on by Moscow’s “illegal attacks”, while its foreign ministry said it had informed NATO allies about the airspace breach.
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