Warnings Issued Over Possible Airspace Threats in Latvia and Estonia

Residents in Latvia’s Alūksne municipality received a nighttime mobile alert over a possible threat to the country’s airspace, while Estonia also reported drones in its skies.

Latvia’s military said it had detected a possible threat over Alūksne and that fighter jets assigned to NATO’s Baltic air-policing mission took off. Estonian officials separately confirmed that unmanned aircraft had been present in Estonian airspace. Turkish F-16s serving with the mission were involved in the response.

Authorities urged people in the affected areas to remain at home and follow the “two-wall” principle. They were also told to close windows and doors and call 112 if they spotted a low-flying, suspicious or dangerous object. The air alert in Alūksne was lifted at 4:17 a.m.

About an hour and a half earlier, officials had issued a lower-level yellow warning in Latvia’s Ludza municipality over a possible airspace threat. That warning was later cancelled.

The alerts came after several similar notifications to residents in Latvia’s Latgale and Vidzeme regions this summer. Several foreign drones have crashed and exploded in Latvia, and NATO fighters have shot down some of them. The incidents were described as likely linked to drones used in the Russia-Ukraine war that approached or entered Latvian airspace. In early August, it was reported that Russia was considering attacks on critical infrastructure in the Baltic states using Ukrainian drones.