BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO on Tuesday condemned Russia for violating Estonian airspace last week and said it would use “all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves” as it faced “a pattern of increasingly irresponsible behaviour” by Moscow.
Estonia said on Friday that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes before being escorted out by NATO Italian fighter jets – an incident Western officials say was likely designed to test NATO’s readiness and resolve.
The incident occurred the week after some 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting NATO jets to shoot down some of them.
“Russia bears full responsibility for these actions, which are escalatory, risk miscalculation and endanger lives. They must stop,” the alliance’s North Atlantic Council said in a statement.
“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,” the statement said.
“We will continue to respond in the manner, timing, and domain of our choosing.”
Tuesday’s meeting of the North Atlantic Council, made up of ambassadors from the alliance’s 32 member countries, was called by Estonia under Article 4 of NATO’s founding treaty.
The article states allies will “consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security” of a member is threatened.
It is only the ninth time in NATO’s 76-year history that the article has been invoked – and two of those occasions have come this month in response to the incidents over Poland and Estonia.
“Allies will not be deterred by these and other irresponsible acts by Russia from their enduring commitments to support Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, in the exercise of its inherent right to self-defence against Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war of aggression,” the NATO statement said.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray and Lili Bayer; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Alexandra Hudson)
