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Romania and Latvia, NATO Members, Report Russian Drones Breaching Airspace

September 9, 2024 TruthUSA

Romanian and Latvian defense officials reported discovering Russian military drone parts in their respective territories over the weekend.

NATO alliance members Latvia and Romania reported that Russian military drones violated their airspace this weekend, posing a risk of escalating the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The Latvian Defense Ministry stated that one Russian drone crashed in the Rezekne region of eastern Latvia, near its border with Russia, on Sept. 7.

The Romanian Defense Ministry reported that fragments of another Russian drone fell near Periprava, located near Ukraine’s southwestern Black Sea coastline, on Sept. 7.

The Romanian military suspects that Russian forces used the drone in an attack on Ukrainian port facilities near the border.

While the fallen drone parts in Romania may have been linked to an attack on southwest Ukraine, the reason for the drone crash in Latvia remains unclear.

Despite sharing a border with Russia, Latvia is geographically separated from Ukraine by Belarus.

In a Sept. 9 press update, the Latvian military identified the drone that crashed in the Rezekne region as a “Shahed,” a type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) produced by Iran.

Since 2022, the Iranian government has been providing Russian forces with drones.

The Shahed drone models include reconnaissance aircraft and munitions-carrying drones.

Some Shahed drones are used as “loitering munitions” with the purpose of crashing into targets and exploding.

Rescuers work at a site of a building damaged during a Russian suicide drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 28, 2023. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) — Rescuers work at a site of a building damaged during a Russian suicide drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 28, 2023. Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

The Epoch Times contacted the Latvian Defense Ministry for more specifics about the crashed drone in Rezekne, but the ministry declined to provide additional details.

Latvian Defense Minister Andris Spruds called for increased NATO cooperation to bolster Latvia’s air defense.

“We need to enhance NATO’s airspace defense and support allied presence in Latvia by actively implementing the NATO air defense rotation model,” Spruds stated on Sept. 9.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Foreign Ministry for comments on the weekend’s drone incidents, but received no response at the time of publication.

These incidents raise the risk of escalating the conflict in Ukraine to a broader confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Article 5 of the NATO treaty states that an attack on one member nation is deemed an attack on the alliance as a whole, requiring a unified response.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana, in a Sept. 8 statement, condemned the incident in Romania as “irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” emphasizing that there was no evidence indicating a deliberate attack on NATO members.

Geoana did not address the drone crash in Latvia.

This weekend’s events are not the first instances of the Ukraine conflict spilling over into NATO nations’ territories.

Two Polish citizens died when a stray munition landed in the village of Przewodów in southeastern Poland, near the Polish-Ukrainian border.

Initially, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs attributed the deaths to a Russian missile, but Polish President Andrzej Duda later concluded that the incident was caused by a misfired Ukrainian air defense missile, not an intentional attack on Poland.

A police officer walks past a check point on Nov.16, 2022, in Przewodow, Poland following reports a stray missile hit Polish territory, killing two people. (Omar Marques/Getty Images) — A police officer walks past a check point on Nov.16, 2022, in Przewodow, Poland following reports a stray missile hit Polish territory, killing two people. Omar Marques/Getty Images

Poland deployed fighter jets in March of this year during extensive Russian attacks in western Ukraine.

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, in a Sept. 8 statement, expressed concern about the rising number of air defense incidents along NATO’s eastern flank and called on the alliance to address the issue.

Reuters contributed to this article.

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