NATO weighs downing Russian aircraft after airspace violations

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00:00NATO leaders have just about had it with Russian aircraft invading their airspace,

00:04and some are saying the alliance should beef up its air patrols from simple policing

00:10to a more defensive posture.

00:15In just the last few weeks, Russian aircraft and suspected Russian aircraft

00:20were spotted in the air above Poland, Romania, Estonia and Latvia. Most of the intruding

00:27aircraft were drones. Poland shot down more than a dozen back on September 10th.

00:33At the recent Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, both the Romanian and Norwegian defense ministers

00:40said Russian drones encroaching on their territory is getting to be a far too common occurrence.

00:46Unfortunately, we can see the world from the balcony and from time to time we see a drone

00:50falling down. Actually, we just found another one today. I just received the messages from

00:57from home. We just found another drone, another Russian drone that fell down on our territory

01:04in the Danube Delta. And this is a common thing for the last three and a half years.

01:10And we also have had airspace violations from Russia in the north. But we have a long-standing

01:20tradition of being calm and but with great determination to say clear that this is reckless behavior.

01:29It may be bad navigation and we can see that more often now. So Russia have to take more security

01:38margins when it operates in close areas to our border. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,

01:45is accusing Russia of using its so-called shadow fleet of older tanker ships to launch some drones

01:51into NATO territory from the Baltic Sea. Russia denies any such activity and blames the drone incursions

01:58on faulty navigation when not denying the allegations outright. While Russian drones flying into NATO

02:06territory is becoming a common sight, Russian fighter jets intruding into that same territory

02:12is still pretty rare, but it's not unheard of. The Kremlin ruffled a lot of feathers on NATO's eastern edge

02:19when Russian MiG fighters were observed violating Estonian airspace. Initially, it was reported the Russian

02:26fighters briefly ventured into the airspace but stayed over the Baltic Sea. Now there are reports the

02:32MiGs made a deeper incursion and actually flew over Estonia for about 12 minutes. The bulk of NATO

02:40leadership sees this as an obvious escalation on Moscow's part. Ukraine says Russia is probing NATO

02:47defenses and gathering intel in preparation for a wider war. The president of Latvia says NATO needs to shift

02:55its air policing strategy in the Baltics to one of full-scale air defense. In simple terms, this would

03:03mean deploying more NATO air defense systems to the east, including more NATO jets, and giving those

03:09pilots more aggressive rules of engagement. So instead of simply intercepting wayward Russian jets and then

03:16escorting them back to Russian airspace, as is typically the case in a policing strategy, NATO pilots would have

03:24more leeway to shoot down Russian aircraft. Not everyone in NATO is a fan of shifting to an air

03:30defense strategy because there are concerns over how Russia might react or overreact to the change.

03:38But the last three and a half years of warfare on NATO's eastern flank is certainly changing a lot of

03:44attitudes in Europe. And President Trump did throw his support behind knocking down Russian jets and drones

03:51that venture into NATO airspace. So, Admiral Giuseppe Dragone, the Italian chairman of NATO's military

03:58committee, said while it may be too soon to make a final decision, upgrading NATO's air mission from

04:05policing to defensive was definitely an option on the table. Other options could also include more

04:12investment and wide-scale deployment of Ukrainian air defense systems, which are proving their effectiveness

04:19every day against Russia. We recently went to Ukraine's Defense Tech Valley 2025 summit where

04:24many of these systems were on display. We've already reported on some of those, and we have more reports

04:31on the way. To make sure you see them all, download the Straight Arrow News app today.