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Two German Eurofighter jets were scrambled on Sunday to intercept a Russian military aircraft above the Baltic Sea, as Estonia said it would call an emergency meeting of the UN security council after Russian planes violated its airspace.
Germany’s air force said the Russian Il-20M reconnaissance plane had switched off its transponders and ignored requests to make contact. The Eurofighters took off from the Rostock-Laage airbase to head off the aircraft as it flew in international airspace.
Tensions between Nato and Russia have been dramatically rising after a series of what European governments say are deliberate, provocative acts by the Kremlin. On Friday, three Russian MiG-31 fighters violated Estonian airspace in the Gulf of Finland. Moscow denies this.
Asked if the US was willing to defend EU countries from further Russian aggression, Donald Trump on Sunday said: “Yeah, I would. I would.” Earlier, the US president said he “didn’t like” Russia’s jet incursion but said he had not been briefed about it.
Estonia condemned the Kremlin’s “brazen” behaviour. It said it was convening an emergency security council meeting for the first time in 34 years of Estonia’s membership of the UN. World leaders are gathering this week in New York for the UN’s general assembly.
Estonian foreign minister, Margus Tsahkna, said the violation was “part of a broader pattern of escalation by Russia, both regionally and globally”. It included violations of Polish and Romanian airspace. “This behaviour requires an international response,” Tsahkna said.
Tallinn – a staunch supporter of Ukraine – has requested consultations under Nato’s article four, which allows members to meet with allies if their security is threatened. Last week, Poland’s foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, said Moscow was testing Nato’s reactions with “incremental” hostile steps, short of a full-scale conflict.
His comments at a security conference in Kyiv came after 19 Russian drones landed on Polish territory. Over the weekend, a man who was out foraging for mushrooms discovered debris from a decoy drone in a forested area, about 1.5km from the village of Sulmice, in Zamość county.
According to Bloomberg, citing Kremlin sources, Vladimir Putin has concluded that the US is unlikely to do much to strengthen Ukraine’s defences after his August summit with Donald Trump in Alaska. Russia intends to step up its attacks to force Kyiv to capitulate, the agency reported.
Reports suggest Washington is planning to reduce security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which share a border with Russia.
Estonia’s defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said Russian actions were aimed at shifting the west’s focus away from Ukraine. “This is exactly what Russia wants – to divert our attention away from helping Ukraine and to focus on our own back yard. That’s the key goal,” he said.
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Posting on Facebook, Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkėvičs, said there was a risk of “serious conflict” if Russia continued in the coming weeks to provoke Nato. European governments did not want a wider war but had no choice but to respond, he said.
Rinkėvičs added: “Russia is doing just enough to make it seem like it is not going too far. But, knowing both the logic of thinking in Russia and the frequent incompetence at various levels, this [a conflict] could happen. The responsibility will lie with the Kremlin.”
The Czech president, Petr Pavel, called on Nato to respond decisively to Russian aggression and to stay united. “Unfortunately, this is balancing on the brink of conflict, but giving in to evil is simply impossible,” he said.
Russia, meanwhile, accused the UK on Sunday of being one of the leaders of what it said was a pro-war “camp”. According to the Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, western attempts to pressure Russia would not work or help efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Speaking on Friday before his trip to the UN, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was ready to hold talks with Putin or to meet him together with Trump. Russia says this can happen only when the “root causes” of the war have been addressed – meaning once Ukraine has surrendered.
