Estonia’s armed forces announced late Tuesday that several drones detected within its territory had likely deviated from their intended path while en route from Ukraine to Russia. Earlier that day, Estonia reported drone detections both inside and outside its airspace overnight, with debris from at least one drone recovered, signaling a breach of its airspace.
An army spokesperson explained that the drones were believed to have been launched from Ukraine aiming to strike military targets on Russian soil near Estonia’s borders but inadvertently crossed into Estonian airspace. Meanwhile, Finnish police confirmed on Wednesday that a drone detected in Finland the previous day was foreign, with reports suggesting it originated from Ukraine.
These airspace violations coincided with renewed Ukrainian drone attacks on a Russian oil export terminal near St. Petersburg. The NATO Baltic air policing mission responded to the drone threat, though it was not disclosed whether any drones crashed within Estonia. The spokesperson emphasized that such incidents are expected to continue as a direct consequence of Russia’s ongoing full-scale war against Ukraine.
In a significant development, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha stated during a press conference that Ukraine is collaborating closely with the Baltic states and Finland to prevent future airspace breaches. He assured that Ukraine never intended to target these countries and attributed the incursions to deliberate actions by Russia.
Notably, on Sunday, a stray drone crashed in Finland, marking the first spillover of the Ukraine conflict onto Finnish territory. In the previous week, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania also reported drones of Ukrainian origin entering their airspace in connection with earlier attacks on the Russian oil terminal.
