Latvia Says Russian Shahed Kamikaze Drone Crashed In Its Territory 

Latvia said Monday that an Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drone has crashed into its territory. Its military said the aerial incursion happened Saturday, and following an investigation the drone was found in the eastern part of the country.

Latvia is a NATO and EU member, and the incident has served to heighten already boiling tensions with Russia further, along NATO’s ‘eastern flank’. Poland too has of late said that a Russian drone violated its airspace and went down in its territory.

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“The explosive warhead stuck half a meter deep into the ground and was neutralized on the spot, avoiding detonation,” Latvian armed forces commander General Leonids Kalnins told a press briefing.

This “allowed our military intelligence officers to gather all the debris and remnants from the drone for further investigation, details of which will be shared with all of our NATO partners,” he described.

Separately Latvian air force commander Colonel Viesturs Masulis offered an important caveat, saying “the drone was not aimed at a military target in our country. It sort of drifted into Latvia.”

“The drone was seen by our air defenses while still deep into Belarusian airspace, which gave us time to react,” he said at the same briefing.

It is as yet uncertain whether Latvia’s anti-air defenses engaged the inbound drone at all, or merely tracked it. Latvia’s military had already confirmed a recent build-up of mobile anti-aircraft units in the country’s borderlands, as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

While Poland has recorded two cases of Russian drones breaching its territory, Romania similarly registered a new airspace breach on Sunday into its territory.

Warsaw has recently signaled it is ready to begin shooting down Russian drones over Ukrainian airspace which might pose a threat to Poland. But NATO leadership, particularly Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, has rejected this proposal, saying that this should be a common NATO decision given the potential of such an action triggering NATO Article 5.

If a NATO eastern flank country engaged Russian airpower over Ukraine, this presents a likely scenario of a direct shooting war between the West and Moscow forces. At this point saner minds in the West are hoping to avoid such a bigger conflict.