NATO warns Russia for airspace injuries: will defend us

The NATO countries convicted Russia for the violation of the Estonian airspace last week and warn Moscow that they would use “all necessary” military and non-military means to defend themselves, as the explanation of all 32 Bündnis states published in Brussels.

The incident is part of a pattern of the latest actions on the part of Russia, which are “escalating, risk and endanger misjudgments and endanger life,” says a declaration of the western defense alliance published on Tuesday. That must stop.

The statement once again makes it clear that in the future not only drones but also Russian planes could be shot down in order to rule out a threat to the alliance area. As a result, there could be a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia.

The meeting in the NATO headquarters had been convened at the request of Estonia. The Baltic Land had applied for consultations on Friday, citing Article 4 of the Alliance Treaty, after three Russian MiG-31 machines had flown through Estonian airspace for around twelve minutes above the Baltic Sea. Article 4 of the NATO contract provides for consultations when an ally sees the integrity of the alliance area, the political independence or the security of a party threatened.

The special consultations according to Article 4 have already been the second since the beginning of the month. Poland applied for talks on September 10 after a double -digit number of Russian drones in the airspace of Poland had appeared. Previously, there had been consultations for Ukraine in 2022 because of the Russian attack and in 2020 due to the death of Turkish soldiers in the Syria conflict.

In response to the violation of the Polish airspace, NATO had already launched an even better surveillance and defense of the eastern flank on September 12. For him, Germany provides four Eurofighter type to participate in armed protection flights over Poland.

The situation for NATO is currently delicate primarily because it is usually very difficult to prove that airspace injuries are deliberately carried out. In the case of Estonia’s allegations, Russia even denies that an airspace injury has occurred. It is therefore very likely that a Russian aircraft will only be fired if it could clearly pose a threat to NATO from the flight route.

Drone sightings at Copenhagen Airport on Monday are not explicitly mentioned in the NATO statement. If it turns out that Russia has something to do with it, the tensions between the two sides could exacerbate again, since the drones also caused considerable economic damage. According to the airport information, around 100 flights had to be canceled in connection with the drone sighting. Over the course of today, further delays in departures and landings are expected.

It was the “heaviest attack on Danish critical infrastructure so far,” said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement. She did not express a concrete suspicion of who could be responsible for this. The Kremlin has suspected of being involved in Russia’s drone incident.