Estonia requests NATO Article 4 consultation after Russian fighter jets breach airspace

Estonia invoked NATO’s Article 4, triggering a consultative meeting of the alliance’s most senior decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, after three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated its airspace on Friday, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal announced.

Writing on X, Michal said the jets had entered Estonia’s airspace on Friday morning in a “totally unacceptable” violation, before NATO fighter jets “responded and the Russian planes were forced to flee”.

According to an Estonian government statement, Russian jets entered Estonian airspace from the northeast, where they were intercepted first by Finnish jets, then by Italian F-35s under NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission.

The Russian jets had “no flight plans, their transponders were switched off, and at the time of the violation they also lacked two-way radio communication with Estonian air traffic control”, the statement continued.

Tallinn summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires in protest at the 12-minute breach, Estonia’s Foreign Ministry said.

“Russia has already violated Estonia’s airspace four times this year, which in itself is unacceptable”, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. “But today’s incursion, involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen”.

“Russia’s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure”, Tsahkna added.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte hailed the alliance’s “quick and decisive” response to the violation under its new Eastern Sentry mission, which was launched to bolster defences along its eastern flank following the unprecedented incursion of some 19 Russian drones into Polish airspace earlier this month.

Under Article 4 of the NATO convention, member states may request formal consultations with the alliance when they perceive a threat to their territorial integrity, political independence or security. It is the second time the article has been invoked this month, with Poland also seeking consultations after its airspace was breached.

In a statement, Russia’s Defence Ministry denied that its jets had entered Estonia’s airspace, insisting they had travelled over neutral waters in the Gulf of Finland as they carried out a “scheduled flight” from the republic of Karelia in Russia’s northwest to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, condemned the violation as part of a “systematic Russian campaign directed against Europe, against NATO, against the West” that he said showed “Russia’s destabilising activity is expanding into new countries and directions”.