Two Russian drones violated NATO airspace on separate occasions within 24 hours, raising concerns about a possible military confrontation between Russia and the military alliance.
The airspace violations occurred amid increasing Russian aerial assaults on various regions of Ukraine, a strategy Russia adopted after losing nearly 500 miles of territory to Ukraine in the Kursk region.
According to the Romanian defense ministry, a Russian drone briefly entered Romanian airspace before heading towards Ukraine. Romania had to mobilize its F-16 fighter jets to deal with any potential confrontation, inform NATO allies about the incursion, and alert residents of the two regions.
Romania also discovered fragments of the Russian drone in Plauru, a village along the Romania-Ukraine border.
Just one day before this incident, another Russian drone crashed in Latvia, also a NATO member, near the city of Rezekne, located more than 50 kilometers beyond the Latvia-Russia border.
Latvia’s defense ministry believes the drone entered from neighboring Belarus, a major Russian ally in its war against Ukraine.
The foreign ministry of Romania also condemned Russia for unnecessarily escalating the security situation in Europe and demanded an immediate halt of the “repeated attacks.”
NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană, a Romanian diplomat, condemned Russia’s aggression, calling it a dangerous and irresponsible attack against the alliance.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha argued that drone incursions into NATO countries should prompt the alliance to support Ukraine more aggressively in protecting innocent lives and safeguarding Europe from needless chaos.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, advised NATO countries to shoot down Russian drones in the future.
NATO works on the principle of collective response, a vision that is outlined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the founding document of the alliance.
Geopolitical and military experts have long feared that the Russia-Ukraine war could spill over into NATO countries, either due to miscalculations or Russia’s deliberate attempt to escalate a regional conflict into a global one.
Meanwhile, Russia has slammed the West, particularly the US, for allowing Ukraine to use its weapons to strike Russian targets. Putin believes this approach by the West has made NATO a party to the conflict and could drag the world into a much larger and more dangerous clash.
Russian attempts to breach NATO airspace come at a time when it is increasingly focused on dominating Ukraine through its aerial power. After Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, Russia launched numerous aerial attacks on Ukraine in an attempt to regain the upper hand in the ongoing war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has largely remained defiant in the face of international criticism since staging a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, has now told China that he is “always open” to peace talks with Ukraine to end the 31-month-old conflict.
