Baltic Drone Incursions Spark NATO Alerts and Latvian Government Collapse
Russia and Belarus are accused of redirecting Ukrainian drones into Baltic airspace, triggering emergency shelters in Lithuania and the resignation of Latvia's government.
A series of drone incursions across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in May 2026 has triggered severe security alerts and political instability. The crisis peaked on May 20, when Lithuania issued a major emergency alert after detecting drone activity near the Belarusian border. This prompted residents in Vilnius and Alytus to seek shelter and forced President Gitanas Nausėda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene into bunkers, while Vilnius Airport closed its airspace. NATO scrambled fighter jets from Estonia to investigate, though they failed to identify the object.
The instability has had severe political consequences in Latvia, where drones crashed into an oil storage facility in Rezekne and hit fuel tanks, leading to the resignations of Prime Minister Evika Siliņa and Defense Minister Andris Spruds. In Estonia, a Romanian F-16 shot down a drone, and another strike hit a power plant chimney.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have condemned the incursions, attributing the instability to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys alleged that Russia is deliberately using electronic warfare to redirect Ukrainian drones into Baltic airspace to sow chaos. Ukraine apologized for the incursions, blaming Russian jamming and spoofing. Conversely, the Russian government dismissed these claims as disinformation, accusing the Baltic states of permitting Ukrainian strikes from their territory.
