European officials warn Kremlin that NATO will down Russian jets that violate its airspace

European officials warned Moscow this week that NATO would respond to future Russian violations of its airspace with “full force”, including by shooting down Russian jets, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

According to Bloomberg, diplomats from the UK, France and Germany met with Kremlin officials in Moscow to raise their concerns about the incursion of three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets into Estonian airspace last week.

The report comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the West over a series of breaches of NATO airspace, with the alliance meeting twice in as many weeks for consultations under its Article 4 after the Estonia incident and the incursion of some 19 Russian drones into Polish airspace earlier this month.

Officials in Denmark also refused to rule out potential Russian involvement in drone incursions that caused disruption at several Danish airports this week, with Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen calling them a “hybrid attack” that showed signs of being orchestrated by a “professional actor”.

The Russian Embassy in Copenhagen, however, called that incident a “staged provocation” and dismissed suggestions of Moscow’s involvement as “absurd speculations”.

During this week’s “tense meeting” in Moscow, a Russian diplomat told the European officials that recent Russian incursions into EU airspace were a "response to Ukrainian attacks on Crimea”, which they claimed would “not have been possible without NATO support”, Bloomberg reported.

The conversation led the Europeans to conclude that the incursion into Estonia “had been a deliberate tactic ordered by Russian commanders”, it added.

Following the Article 4 consultations with Estonia on Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte urged Russia to stop the “escalatory” breaches of European airspace and warned the alliance’s response to any further incursions would be “robust”.

“Russia should be in no doubt: NATO and Allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions”, Rutte said.

The same day, US President Donald Trump also indicated that NATO countries should shoot down Russian jets that entered their airspace.

On Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to France, Alexey Meshkov, told radio network RTL that NATO downing Russian aircraft “would be war” and claimed that Western planes frequently violated Russia’s airspace, though he did not provide any examples.