Overview

• Estonia says the fighters entered over the Gulf of Finland near Vaindloo and remained in its airspace for about 12 minutes.
• Italian Air Force F-35s based at Ämari under NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission intercepted the Russian aircraft.
• According to Estonia, the jets had no filed flight plans, flew with transponders off and maintained no two-way radio contact with Estonian air traffic control.
• Tallinn summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires and lodged a formal protest, noting this is the fourth Russian airspace violation reported by Estonia this year.
• EU officials condemned the move as an extremely dangerous provocation and advanced a new sanctions package, as Poland separately reported two Russian fighters near a Petrobaltic platform in the Baltic Sea.