Estonia blames Russian jamming for drone explosion on its territory. An armed drone that crashed in Estonia is likely a Ukrainian drone that went off course due to Russian electronic interference in the Baltic region, officials in Tallinn said, according to Bloomberg, writes UNN.
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The wreckage of the exploded drone was found on agricultural land in southern Estonia on Monday afternoon, the country's Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said at a press conference in Tallinn.
Officials said the drone, an incident they are still investigating and do not consider Russian, could have been used by Ukraine on Sunday, when the Russian port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea was hit.
Similar incidents have occurred on NATO's eastern flank with Russia, highlighting the risks to frontline alliance members since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The three Baltic states bordering Russia have recently begun to raise the alarm about a significant buildup of Russian electronic warfare, which disrupts navigation systems used by drones, as well as civilian airliners, the publication writes.
Last week, Poland's defense minister accused Russia of provocation after a military drone crashed and exploded on Polish territory. In July, a combat drone entered Lithuanian airspace, causing high-ranking officials to evacuate to a bunker. Vilnius then appealed to NATO to deploy anti-drone assets, including experimental ones, on its borders with Russia and Belarus, Moscow's ally.
"Unfortunately, it is impossible to detect everything, as incidents in other European countries have shown," the Estonian Defense Minister said at a press conference in Tallinn, adding that Estonia's main anti-drone measure at the moment is NATO allied fighters that regularly patrol the Baltic skies.
"If it had fallen on a residential building, it would have very likely caused damage - possibly significant," Margo Palloson, head of Estonia's national intelligence, said at the press conference.
According to officials, Estonian radars had previously detected another drone that fell on the Russian shore of Lake Peipus last weekend, although they did not specify its origin.