Russia ‘likely’ to step up ‘blatant behaviour’ towards West, Estonian ambassador warns after airspace violation
The Estonian ambassador to the UK has warned that Moscow’s ‘blatant behaviour’ to its Western neighbours is ‘likely to increase' after Russian jets violated the country’s airspace.
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Estonia’s foreign ministry said three Russian jets entered its airspace without permission on Friday and remained there for 12 minutes, the third violation of NATO airspace in a little more than a week.
The aircraft were intercepted by NATO jets, a spokesperson for the alliance confirmed, while Estonia summoned Russia’s senior diplomat in Tallinn over the incident.
Sven Sakkov, Estonia’s ambassador to the UK, has told LBC News it is “likely that Russia will increase its blatant behaviour towards its western neighbours.”
“I think there's [much] speculation about why they do that,” he added. “One is for example that countries would feel more threatened and do not want to send more air defence assets to Ukraine to be used in its defence.
“I think we should prove otherwise, that we do not reduce our support for Ukraine, but at the same time we increase the defence of NATO's eastern flank.”
NATO countries responded by intercepting the Russian jets, and a spokesperson for the alliance said: “This is yet another example of reckless Russian behaviour and NATO's ability to respond.”
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the UK “stands with our Estonian allies, following yet another reckless incursion into NATO airspace by Russia.”
"We must continue to increase pressure on Putin, including driving forward the important new economic sanctions announced by the UK & EU in recent days,” she wrote in a post on X.
EU high representative for foreign affairs Kaja Kallas described the incident as an "extremely dangerous provocation" which "further escalates tension in the region", and warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was "testing the West’s resolve".
Ms Sakkov told LBC that Estonia will ask for an increased NATO presence within its country to stave off further violations, after the country requested an urgent meeting with the alliance by invoking Article 4.
"Poland also asked for Article 4 consultations (after Russia's drone incursion into its airspace) and as a result a number of allies moved a number of aircraft further east into Polish airfields, basically bolstering air defence of that country.
“And I suspect that we'll be moving somewhere in the same direction in Estonia and more widely in the Baltic states".
The Russian Ministry of Defence has denied that the jets entered Estonian airspace, stating that their flights were "conducted in strict compliance with international airspace regulations."
It said that the three jets were flying "from Karelia to an airfield in the Kaliningrad region."
In a statement shared on Telegram, the ministry said: "During the flight, the Russian aircraft did not deviate from the agreed-upon route and did not violate Estonian airspace. The aircraft's flight route lay over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, more than three kilometres from Vaindlo Island."
The incursion came 10 days after Russian drones entered Polish airspace and six days after another Russian drone was intercepted flying over Romania.
The incident over Poland prompted Prime Minister Donald Tusk to warn that his country was the closest to "open conflict" it had been since the Second World War, while the UK announced it would provide Warsaw with extra air cover in the form of RAF jets.
Mr Sakkov also insisted that US President Donald Trump is a reliable ally to NATO, despite his failure to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
The ambassador said: "I do not fully subscribe to [the view that] during the first Trump administration, American support for NATO was somehow weak, it actually increased.
“A lot of positive things happened to European security. Right now, when we look at The Hague summit of NATO this summer, where everything that NATO stands for was reaffirmed, including by President Trump, I'm not worried about that.
“And President Trump's reaction to this specific incursion was, I think, quite logical and saying: 'I don't like it, I want to know more about it’".
Trump, whose relationship with Putin is notoriously closer than most other world leaders, kept his comments on the incident in Estonia short.
Asked if it signalled a "threat to NATO" while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, Trump said: "I don't love it. I don't like it when that happens. It could be big trouble."
The Russia-Ukraine war has become the largest and deadliest in Europe since World War II as efforts to reach an end to the violence fail to take hold.
On Thursday Trump, who claimed he would end the war on 'day one' of his second term, said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has “really let me down” over his efforts to end the conflict.
The US president told a Chequers press conference he does not regret meeting Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last month in Alaska, despite the meeting ending without an agreement.
The US president admitted he had initially thought the war, which he previously claimed he could end within one day of entering the White House, would have been “the easiest” conflict to settle.
But a peace deal appears to be no closer despite months of Washington-led talks, and Trump’s ultimatums and deadlines for the Russian leader to engage with proposals have passed without obvious consequences.