Four nations threatened in two weeks – Nato scrambles over Russian provocation

Within minutes, two Nato F-35 interceptors were airborne and close enough to the intruders to see the Russian pilots waving back at them. By 10.10am the Russians had left Estonia bound for one of their bases in Kaliningrad, but not before ignoring repeated orders to change course.

Pevkur, Estonia’s defence minister, last week told The Observer the incursion was unprecedented for its duration and brazenness. But “we didn't see that there [was] an acute threat to our sovereignty or our security”, he said, so no order was given to shoot the Russians down.

One of his foreign ministry colleagues says he was “perfectly happy” with Nato’s response. The difficulty for Nato is that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, also has reason to be happy.

Four times in two weeks, missions blamed on Russia have tested Nato’s eastern defences and raised the spectre of direct conflict with a regime that has frequently warned it is ready to use nuclear weapons.

In Romania and Poland, fighters have been scrambled to chase drones out of Nato airspace or, in Poland’s case, to shoot them down. In Denmark, unauthorised drone activity triggered alarms at four military sites and briefly closed Copenhagen’s main airport. Norway’s Oslo airport was also shut down, causing widespread flight delays and cancellations.

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, called the drone swarms “the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date”. Pevkur said Moscow’s goal was to distract attention from the war in Ukraine – and that it would fail. “Russia is deliberately pushing all of us to deal with our own incidents and airspace violations,” he said. “We keep our heads calm … we continue helping Ukraine.”

Putin is managing to sow confusion even so, and to force Nato to confront existential questions to which it lacks clear answers. After the drones appeared over Danish bases on Tuesday night, officials hesitated over whom to blame, although Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said they were clearly “part of Putin’s strategy”. The head of Denmark’s armed forces said his units could have shot them down but did not for fear of causing civilian casualties. On Friday he was contradicted by the Danish defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, who said the country’s ground-based air defence systems weren’t up to the task.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump said he thought Nato should shoot down Russian jets the next time they entered Nato airspace. The alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, has since taken the same view in public and a group of European ambassadors have reportedly reinforced that position in private.

But whether Nato will actually fire on Russian jets is another matter. The US president’s support for military action by the alliance appears equivocal: he ended a Truth Social post on the Ukraine war last week with the words “Good luck to all”, reinforcing the impression Europe would be on its own in a direct clash with Russia.

Current Nato rules of engagement require “a real threat of attack” before an order to shoot down a plane is given, according to a former senior US defence official. The alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence pact requires unanimity to be invoked, and that is unlikely as long as Hungary, a Russian ally, remains a member.

A rung down from an Article 5 emergency, Nato members can invoke Article 4 of its charter to request emergency talks on how to respond to a new threat. They have done so nine times in history – twice in the past fortnight, after Russian drones entered Polish airspace on 9 September and after the Estonian incursion, which led to five hours of debate by Nato ambassadors.

In the event of a Russian attack, the alliance is unlikely to have that long to think. Estonia, with a 700km Russian border and a large Russian population, is therefore leading efforts to enhance Nato’s frontline conventional deterrence. The result of Putin’s manoeuvres will be more Nato forces in the region, not fewer, says Jonatan Vseviov, one of the country’s most senior diplomats. The message: “We do not accept what you’re doing. You need to stop before things get out of hand.”

In the meantime, Denmark is preparing to host a EU summit on Wednesday for which Sweden is providing anti-drone defence technology. It may or may not calm nerves. On Friday morning alarms were triggered again because of a bright light above the country’s second-biggest airport at Billund. It turned out to be a shining star.

9 September
Nineteen Russian drones (at €10,000 apiece) penetrate Polish airspace. Nato jets shoot down at least three of them.

13 September
F-16 jets are scrambled to chase a Russian drone out of Romania.

19 September
Three Russian MiG-31s violate Estonian airspace and are escorted out after 12 minutes by Italian Nato F-35 fighter jets.

22 September
Drone activity briefly closes Copenhagen and Oslo airports.

23-24 September
Drones seen over four Danish military sites are described as “part of Putin’s strategy”.

Photograph by Federico Gambarini/DPA