NATO fighter, one drone, one district: a jammed intercept lands over Latvia

A NATO fighter patrolling Baltic airspace shot down a drone over Latvia early Friday, the Latvian Armed Forces said, in the second Baltic-region drone incursion this week.

The interception happened over Balvi Municipality, near Latvia's borders with Belarus and Russia. Latvian officials said the drone entered the country's airspace after being knocked off course by Russian electronic warfare systems — not as a deliberate strike on Latvian territory. Russia has regularly bombarded Ukraine's Baltic-facing neighbors with stray drones since intensifying its own long-range strike campaign, and on 12 August, Romania detonated two Russian drones that washed up near its Black Sea gas field.

Latvian forces reported an "airspace threat" in four districts bordering Belarus and Russia shortly after 04:00, and announced the drone's destruction roughly 30 minutes later. Ieva Bērziņa, a representative of Latvia's Joint Armed Forces Staff, said the crash site had been located but its exact position was not being disclosed, and that debris may be scattered over a wide area because the drone was shot down at high altitude.

The incident coincided with a large-scale drone attack on Russian targets in Leningrad Oblast overnight.

This is not the first time drones have crossed into the Baltic states during Russian strikes on its own territory. In May, a drone that entered from Russia damaged fuel tanks at an oil depot in Rēzekne, about 40 kilometers from the border. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in March that Russia was deliberately steering Ukrainian drones toward Baltic airspace using electronic warfare, adding that Moscow later uses the resulting incidents in information operations targeting the region.

Latvia is weighing the purchase of Brazilian-made A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft for counter-drone missions, funded through more than €1 billion the government has earmarked for stronger air defense.