{"id":32281,"date":"2025-09-20T06:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T06:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/32281\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T06:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T06:11:14","slug":"trump-responds-to-russian-fighters-breaching-estonian-airspace-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/32281\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump responds to Russian fighters breaching Estonian airspace \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Estonia<\/a> summoned a Russian<\/a> diplomat to protest after three Russian fighter aircraft entered its airspace without permission on Friday and stayed there for 12 minutes, the Estonian foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n

Estonia has decided to request Nato Article 4 consultations over a violation of its airspace by Russian fighter jets, prime minister Kristen Michal wrote on X on Friday.<\/p>\n

It came just over a week after Nato<\/a> planes downed Russian drones over Poland and heightened fears that the war in Ukraine<\/a> could spill over.<\/p>\n

Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsakhna said Russia had already violated Estonian airspace four times this year \u201cbut today\u2019s incursion, involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russian officials did not immediately comment.<\/p>\n

United States president said on Friday he would soon be briefed on the reported Russian incursion and made clear he was not pleased with the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t love it. I don\u2019t like when that happens. Could be big trouble,\u201d Mr Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n

The Russian MiG-31 fighters entered Estonian airspace in the area of Vaindloo Island, which is a small island located in the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, the Estonian military said in a separate statement.<\/p>\n

The aircraft did not have flight plans and their transponders were turned off, the statement said, nor were the aircraft in two-way radio communication with Estonian air traffic services.<\/p>\n

Italian Air Force F-35 fighter jets, currently deployed as part of the Nato Baltic air-policing mission, responded to the incident, according to the statement.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s violation of Poland\u2019s airspace was the most serious cross-border incident into a Nato member country since the war in Ukraine began with Russia\u2019s all-out invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

Other alliance countries have reported similar incursions and drone crashes on their territory.<\/p>\n

The developments have increasingly rattled European governments as US-led efforts to stop the war in Ukraine have come to nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia\u2019s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure,\u201d Mr Tsakhna said.<\/p>\n

The Russian charge d\u2019affaires was summoned and given a protest note, a ministry statement said.<\/p>\n

The European Union\u2019s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Friday\u2019s incursion \u201can extremely dangerous provocation\u201d that \u201cfurther escalates tensions in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n

Estonia, along with other Baltic states Lithuania and Latvia, are seen as being among the most likely targets if Russia one day decides to risk an attack on Nato.<\/p>\n

Neighbouring Poland, though much larger, also feels vulnerable. All four countries are staunch supporters of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

A Nato spokesperson confirmed that Nato responded to the incident and intercepted the Russian fighter jets: \u201cEarlier today, Russian jets violated Estonian airspace. Nato responded immediately and intercepted the Russian aircraft. This is yet another example of reckless Russian behaviour and Nato\u2019s ability to respond.\u201d – AP\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Estonia summoned a Russian diplomat to protest after three Russian fighter aircraft entered its airspace without permission on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,17075,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-32281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-nato","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}