NATO on high levels to discuss drone incidents at request of Latvia and Romania - president

RIGA - At the request of Latvia and Romania, a discussion on the "drone incidents" will be held at the highest NATO level, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview with TV24 television.

Commenting on the situation with the drone that crashed in the Rezekne region, the president said that the Defense Ministry and the National Armed Forces (NBS) were currently investigating to find out additional details.

"The public expects as much information as possible, but we also have to take into account that there are certain issues that cannot be discussed in public. From a broader point of view, we see that there have been such incidents of drones entering the territories of NATO member states, such as Poland, Romania and now Latvia," Rinkevics said.

In his view, this is a new reality we have to be aware that different types of incidents may happen. The president drew attention to the fact that several decisions had been taken at the NATO summits in Washington and Vilnius. Rinkevics noted that the need to reinforce the air defense systems of NATO's eastern flank, especially those of the Baltic states, had been discussed. There is also a need for a more coherent common NATO strategy to deal with these new threats. In the president's view, the current algorithms of action cannot be unified and the response needs to be much stronger.

According to Rinkevics, as long as Russian aggression in Ukraine continues and Ukraine does not receive sufficient support to strengthen its air defense systems, and restrictions are imposed on the use of supplied weapons against Russia, Russia's "impudence" will increase. Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure and civilian objects are also increasing.

Rinkevics stressed that NATO member states must define the same algorithm of action, because sometimes the responses are different. In his opinion, Latvia's capabilities, for example, in the fight against various types of potential provocative elements, including air defense capabilities, should also be constantly improved.

"When I often hear discussions about the budget and the desire to "shove" under health, culture and something else under security, explaining that all this is related to security in the long run, I want to remind that this kind of capacity development costs quite a lot of money, and we cannot afford to play games now, to pretend that we allocate a lot to security, but something goes for other purposes. Therefore, in the context of the budget, these issues will also have to be addressed," Rinkevics said.

As reported, the Russian drone that crashed in Gaigalava municipality of Rezekne district was a Shahed-type drone carrying explosives, the National Armed Forces (NBS) said at a press conference on Monday.

The drone has been deactivated and is being thoroughly inspected. After inspection, it will be established whether parts made in western countries had been used in construction of the drone.

According to the NBS, the information obtained so far indicates that the drone's presence in Latvia cannot be assessed as an open military escalation against Latvia and that the drone was not aimed at Latvia. Throughout the incident, the Latvian Defense Forces had been monitoring the situation in cooperation with NATO partners.