NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday that the alliance’s commitment to collective defence was “unshakable” in the face of any threat to member states.
Addressing NATO’s North Atlantic Council meeting that was summoned in responses to Russia’s violation of Estonia’s airspace last week, Rutte said: “We do not want to see a continuation of this dangerous pattern by Russia, intention or not, but we stand ready and willing to continue to defend every inch of allied territory.”
NATO members met on Tuesday after Estonia invoked Article 4, prompting Tallinn to request urgent consultation to address the violation of its airspace by three Russian MIG-31 fighter jets on Friday. The Russian jets remained in the country’s airspace for 12 minutes before NATO scrambled its own fighter jets over the country. Earlier this month, Russia also sent around twenty drones to Poland and another fighter jet to Romania.
Batting away the criticism over the alliance’s inefficient response to Russian border violations, Rutte insisted that NATO has: “all the defensive systems in place to make sure that we can defend every inch of allied territory. That's what we have shown both in the Polish case as well as in the Estonian case."
In response to Russia’s breach into Poland, NATO announced the launch of the Eastern Sentry mission aimed to enhance the defence of the alliance’s eastern flank. Addressing the criticism after NATO deployed million-euro jets to down Russia’s cheap, wooden drones, Rutte said: “One of the reasons why we launched Eastern Sentry… it is not sustainable to take down a let's say, $1,000 or $2,000-costing drone, [with] a half a million or a million [dollar]-costing missile.”
Tuesday’s meeting came as Denmark and Norway intercepted Russian drones in their airspace on Monday, prompting the temporary closure of major airports in Copenhagen and Oslo.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday did not rule out Russia’s involvement in the incident involving three large drones flying over Copenhagen air space for hours on Monday. Mette described it as the “most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure” designed to disrupt and create chaos. Joining in the criticism of violation of Estonia’s airspace, Norway also closed airspace in capital Oslo after the sighting of a drone. Joining in the criticism of violation of Estonia’s airspace, Norway revealed that its airspace was breached three times by Russia over the last few years.
Commenting on Moscow’s alleged involvement in the breach of Nordic countries’ airspace, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "Allegations that our aircraft have allegedly violated airspace have never been substantiated by reliable data or convincing evidence.”
Violation of several NATO members’ airspace in the past two weeks prompted some alliance members to issue warnings to Russia. Sweden and Poland warned this week that they would down any Russian aircraft entering their airspace. Another NATO member Lithuania’s parliament on Tuesday granted the armed forces authority to down any unmanned drones violating its airspace.
