By Andrius Sytas
RIGA (Reuters) -Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics urged NATO on Saturday to increase its protection of the Baltic States, citing Russian violations of the alliance’s airspace, and adding to a similar call from Lithuania.
NATO leaders have said Russia has repeatedly violated alliance airspace, including in the Baltic States and Poland, where earlier this month NATO jets shot down multiple Russian drones.
The following week, Estonia said three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes before NATO fighter jets escorted them out.
“Russia continues a pattern of provocations, most recently recklessly violating the airspace of Poland and Estonia,” Rinkevics told a meeting of NATO’s military committee in the Latvian capital, Riga.
“Transforming Baltic air policing to a Baltic air defence mission with respective rules of engagement should be a priority,” he said.
Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene earlier this month said Vilnius has prepared a position paper on a change in mission to include additional capabilities “such as ground-based air defence assets, sensors and detectors”.
Asked about the possibility of a change to an air defence mission, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO military committee, said it would be premature to take such a decision as the recent incidents were still being investigated.
“This could be an option, depending on what would be the final assessment,” he told a news conference after the committee’s meeting in Riga.
Russia has disputed that Russian jets violated Estonia’s airspace and said that its drones had not planned to hit targets in Poland.
NATO jets have been patrolling the skies over the Baltic States since 2004 and are on standby to scramble and intercept aircraft that intrude into alliance airspace or fly near its borders.
After the incident over Poland, NATO launched an operation named Eastern Sentry to bolster defences all along its eastern flank. But Baltic officials have said they still need more protection.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray and Andrius Sytas; Writing by Andrew Gray; Editing by Barbara Lewis)
