Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas has called for a change in the algorithm of NATO’s Air Policing mission in the Baltic states following the recent crash of a Russian military drone in Latvia.
“The air policing must not only patrol but also, if necessary, if possible, if time permits, shorten the decision-making chain at the NATO level so that they can take off immediately and destroy the drones,” Kasčiūnas told reporters on Wednesday.
If radars detect that a drone may be entering the territory of a NATO country, the information should be quickly handed over to the alliance’s headquarters, he added.
“The NATO HQ assesses the situation to see if there is sufficient evidence that it is a hostile drone and not some other lost aircraft, and then a swift decision is made to deploy air police jets. This is a certain algorithm, and it needs to be accelerated,” Kasčiūnas explained.
Asked about Vilnius’ reaction in case of an aggressor’s drone violating Lithuanian airspace, the defence minister said it should be a collective NATO decision.
Latvia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday that debris from a Russian military drone flying from Belarus had been found in the country’s eastern region of Rēzekne.
Latvia’s Chief of Defence Leonīds Kalniņš told the LETA news agency that the drone entered Latvian airspace on early Saturday morning and was immediately spotted.
According to him, preliminary information suggested that the drone had no “hostile targets” or “specific purposes to fly into Latvia”.
NATO’s Air Policing mission in the Baltic states is being carried out from Lithuania and temporarily from Latvia, while the Estonian airbase is undergoing repairs.
Lithuania is also calling on NATO to beef up the Baltic states’ air defence by adopting a rotational air defence model.
“Now, the air policing mission is in principle designed for slightly different purposes, that is, to monitor airspace and, let’s say, to escort foreign aircraft that have violated airspace out of that airspace,” Kasčiūnas said.
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