Estonia shoots down drone over its territory for the first time — likely Ukrainian

On May 19, the Estonian military shot down a likely Ukrainian drone that had flown into the countryʼs territory.

This was announced by Defense Minister Hanno Pevkura, Delfi reports.

At around 12:00, an air raid warning was issued in the south of the country. The warning concerned Tartu, Jõgeva, Viljandi, Valga, Võru and Põlva counties.

Pevkur told Delfi that a drone had flown into the countryʼs airspace and was shot down by the Baltic Air Defense Forces over Lake Võrtsjärv.

"This is the first time we have shot down a drone ourselves," Pevkur stressed. According to him, it was probably a Ukrainian drone flying towards targets in Russia. The exact circumstances are currently being investigated by the military and intelligence services.

According to Flightradar24, Swedish Air Force aircraft also arrived in Estonia due to the incident.

Drone crashes in the Baltics

In recent months, drones have increasingly entered the airspace of Northern European countries. For example, on the night of May 7, two drones from Russia entered Latvian airspace. One of the downed drones hit empty tanks at an oil depot in the city of Rezekne.

Latvia subsequently launched an investigation, and Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds resigned. He explained that he made the decision to protect the Latvian army from being “drawn into a political campaign”. The country’s Prime Minister Evika Silinė also resigned.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha later stated that the drones that flew into Latvia were Ukrainian. They deviated from their course due to Russian electronic warfare (EW) equipment.

On May 13, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine was sending its experts to Latvia and Lithuania to help protect their airspace.

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