Three Russian fighter jets violated Estonian airspace Friday in a move the Baltic nation called “unprecedentedly brazen” and that appears to be the latest test of NATO’s defenses by the Kremlin’s forces.
The incursion occurred over the Gulf of Finland, where the MiG-31 fighter aircraft entered Estonian airspace without permission and remained there for a total of 12 minutes, according to the Estonian Ministry of Defense.
“Russia has already violated Estonia’s airspace four times this year, which in itself is unacceptable. But today’s incursion, involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen,” Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.
“Russia’s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure,” he added.
Estonia’s government said it had protested to the top Russian diplomat in the country after the incursion.
NATO, which Estonia is a member of, and Russia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.
Nations like Estonia, which was part of the Russian empire and then annexed by the Soviet Union until it fell in 1991, have been on high alert since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Since then, some European countries have warned that NATO needs to fortify its defenses to counter Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions.
The incident comes a week after Poland, another NATO ally, said a number of Russian drones had entered its airspace during an attack on Ukraine, prompting NATO to send fighters jets to shoot them down.
“This situation brings us the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said after Saturday’s incident.
Polish aircraft have been scrambled repeatedly in recent months to patrol the country’s airspace in connection with Russian airstrikes in Ukraine, but those strikes have usually occurred overnight or in the early morning.
Separately, Romania said Saturday that it had deployed two F-16 jets to intercept a drone that briefly entered its airspace on Saturday afternoon.
The incursion came after state media reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was planning to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the United Nations General Assembly next week.
