A Romanian Air Force F-16 shot down a suspected Ukrainian drone over Estonia on 19 May, the first time a NATO fighter has destroyed an unmanned aircraft inside allied territory. The target was almost certainly an attack drone diverted off course by Russian electronic warfare jamming along the eastern front, one of a series of incidents that have turned the Baltic into an accidental live-fire zone since March.
On 23 March a Ukrainian drone crossed into Lithuania. Two days later another entered Latvian and Estonian airspace, passing near the Auvere power station. On 29 March Finland recovered a Ukrainian AN-196 drone carrying an unexploded warhead. On 7 May a drone exploded at the Rezekne oil storage facility in Latvia, damaging four tanks. Further incidents between 17 and 23 May preceded the Estonian intercept.
Russian EW units have progressively extended GPS denial zones westward since autumn 2025, causing Ukrainian attack drones to lose navigation lock and default to last-heading flight paths into NATO territory. The UKDI fibre-optic counter-drone call identified this exact detection gap; the Baltic incidents confirm that jamming itself is a weapon. Armed munitions are now reaching civilian infrastructure, as the UK's £4 billion autonomous-systems commitment and Ukraine's expanded offensive operations both increase drone traffic through contested EW corridors.
No Baltic state has a standing automated counter-drone screen. NATO cannot stop Ukraine using those attack corridors without undermining the war effort, cannot stop Russian jamming without escalating, and must either intercept allied weapons in flight or permit them to crash into civilian infrastructure.
