By Andrius Sytas and Janis Laizans
VILNIUS/RIGA, March 25 (Reuters) – Two stray Ukrainian military drones entered the airspace of Estonia and Latvia on Wednesday morning via Russia, one of which slammed into a chimney at a local power station while the other crash landed, the two Baltic countries said.
The drones that hit the NATO member nations were believed to be part of a wider Ukrainian attack on Russia, Latvian and Estonian authorities said. They follow another stray Ukrainian drone that Lithuania said on Monday had crashed into a lake.
The drones landed in Estonia and Latvia at around the time that Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone attack set fire to oil facilities at Russia’s Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga, major export hubs located near Estonia and Finland.
Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and export routes over recent weeks in an attempt to weaken Russia’s war economy and as peace talks, brokered by Washington, have stalled.
There were no reports of injuries or damage from the drone hit to Estonia’s Auvere power station, located just 2 km (1.2 miles) from the Russian border, the Estonian government said.
“The drone was not directed at Estonia. This is a concrete consequence of Russia’s full-scale war of aggression,” Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a post on X.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics told reporters that the drone which crashed in Latvia was Ukrainian and part of an attack on Russian targets, public broadcaster LSM reported.
A third drone briefly entered Latvian airspace via Belarus before flying into Russia, Latvian authorities said.
Lithuania’s prime minister earlier this week said a military drone that crashed into a lake in Lithuania also came from Ukraine and was aimed at attacking Russia’s oil exports before going astray.
“The war, provoked by the aggressor Russia, has gotten us to this point, with drones falling on the territories of all three Baltic states within 48 hours,” Lithuania’s Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas said in a statement on Wednesday.
“It is obvious that air defence is a challenge not only in Lithuania, but throughout NATO,” he said.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom and Andrius Sytas; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Aidan Lewis)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.