NATO member Estonia (since 2004) has fiercely condemned what it says is a “brazen” incident where Russian warplanes violated its airspace over the Gulf of Finland on Friday.
The Estonian foreign ministry described that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets “entered Estonian airspace without permission and remained there for a total of 12 minutes.”
The ministry quickly summoned Russian chargé d’affaires “to lodge a protest” – and simultaneously EU diplomat Kaja Kallas, who hails from the Baltic country and was the first female prime minister, blasted the incursion as “an extremely dangerous provocation”.
Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna went further to call it “unprecedentedly brazen” saying that–
“Russia’s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure.”
Reports in Estonian media claim that the jets turned off their transponders and ‘went dark’ during the incident, so as to not be tracked easily on radar.
This apparently isn’t a first, as Russia has allegedly violated Estonia’s airspace four times in 2025. Moscow likely isn’t too ‘concerned’ over moments its military might breach the airspace of this tiny former Soviet satellite state in the Baltics.
But European leaders are using these increasing instances to push for an ‘eastern flank’ aerial defense shield protecting NATO.
Just last week the two largest eastern members of NATO said that Russian drones breached their airspace.
The Polish instance was the most serious, given Warsaw accused Russia of intentionally sending a ‘wave’ of drones – up to 19 – which resulted in its military urgently scrambling jets to track them.
Russia in response insisted that there was nothing deliberate about the drone breach, which it turns out involved ‘decoy’ drones commonly used over Ukraine to draw away air defense missiles.
The Kremlin says there are “no plans” to target Polish or NATO soil. But one of the drones may have made it as much as 40 miles into Polish territory, which is significant.
Romania also sent jets to track an apparently errant Russian drone’s movements, and chose not to shoot it down, before it went back into Ukraine.
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