{"id":789,"date":"2026-05-19T11:39:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabnewsmonitor.com\/2026\/05\/19\/nato-country-shoots-down-alleged-ukrainian-drone\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:39:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:39:38","slug":"nato-country-shoots-down-alleged-ukrainian-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/?p=789","title":{"rendered":"NATO country shoots down alleged Ukrainian drone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The destroyed UAV was likely deployed by Kiev to target Russian territory, the Estonian defense minister has said<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Estonia has shot down an alleged Ukrainian drone over its territory for the first time, the NATO and EU member state\u2019s defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, has said.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of incidents related to Ukrainian UAVs targeting northwestern Russia, particularly energy facilities in Leningrad Region. Some of the aircraft eventually crashed in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland.<\/p>\n<p>Moscow has warned that if it turns out that the Baltic States and Finland <em>\u201cdeliberately provide their airspace\u201d<\/em> to Kiev\u2019s UAVs, Moscow has the right to self-defense in response to an <em>\u201carmed attack\u201d<\/em> under Article 51 of the UN Charter.<\/p>\n<p>Pevkur told the outlet Delfi on Tuesday that <em>\u201cthis is the first time we have shot down a drone ourselves.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n        <span><strong>Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<figure>\n            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mf.b37mrtl.ru\/files\/2026.05\/thumbnail\/6a0c21c520302709651b5624.jpg\" alt=\"FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian soldiers preparing a drone for launch.\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/russia\/640160-ukraine-drone-latvia-nato\/\">Ukraine preparing strikes on Russia from NATO country \u2013 Moscow<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The downed UAV had been deployed by Kiev to target Russian territory, the minister claimed.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate interview with ERR outlet, the minister said the Estonian military received an advanced warning about the incoming drone from neighboring Latvia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe activated the necessary measures, and a Baltic Air Policing fighter jet shot the drone down\u201d<\/em> over Lake Vortsjarv in the southern part of the country, he explained.<\/p>\n<p>Baltic Air Policing is a NATO mission to guard the airspace of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.<\/p>\n<p>There is yet no information about possible injuries or damage stemming from the incident, Pevkur said. Various Estonian agencies are on their way to the site where the debris of the drone fell, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The destroyed UAV was likely deployed by Kiev to target Russian territory, the Estonian defense&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arabnewsmonitor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}