That war in Ukraine, that supposedly doesn’t directly involve NATO, keeps spilling over into NATO member countries. We’ve seen wreckage and errant missiles landing in NATO territory before, but apparently now Russian drone operators have no qualms about crossing borders into NATO airspace when it’s convenient:
Romania and Latvia, both NATO members, have recently reported that Russian military drones had violated their airspace. Neither country interceded militarily, although Romania did have military jets shadow the drone and later said it lacked the legislation to act.
Romania also said that “pieces of a Russian drone” had been found at an “impact site” on the outskirts of the village of Periprava in Tulcea, along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. Latvia said that the drone had flown into the country’s airspace from Belarus and crashed in the municipality of Rezekne.
While rare, incidents of drones and missiles, nearly all believed to be Russian, have crossed or crashed into states neighboring Ukraine — including Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and now Latvia — since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
I would note that back in March 2023, Russia downed a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone in international airspace over the Black Sea. The MQ-9 Reaper is the size of a small plane, with a wingspan of 66 feet, a length of 36 feet, and a height of twelve and a half feet. It is larger and more powerful than the MQ-1 Predator drone, and costs $56 million per unit in 2011 dollars. While the Reaper is capable of carrying a variety of missiles, the Pentagon said this drone was unarmed.
So the Russian position is that their drones can fly through the airspace of NATO member countries, but U.S. drones cannot fly in international airspace if the Russians feel like it’s too close to Ukraine.
Anybody in NATO want to do something about this? Anyone want to make any kind of demonstration that this sort of violation of sovereign airspace will carry consequences? Or are we going to treat it like the Russian border guards removing Estonia’s border-marker buoys from the Narva River separating Russia from NATO territory, a provocation that generated no discernible significant response?
I could put this question at the end of almost everything I write these days: Anyone seen the president lately?