Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the airspace of states neighbouring the war has been violated repeatedly — by Russian strike drones and cruise missiles straying off Ukrainian targets, by Russian combat aircraft probing the Baltic and the Black Sea, by smuggling and reconnaissance balloons launched from Belarus, and, increasingly since 2026, by Ukrainian long-range drones pushed off course by Russian electronic warfare while attacking Russian Baltic ports. This tracker logs those incursions one by one: the date, whose airspace was entered, who the incident is officially attributed to, what was flying and how it ended. About this tracker ↓
Violations are rare and read as accidents of proximity: strike drones and cruise missiles aimed at Ukrainian Danube ports stray a few kilometres into Romania, debris turns up in forests weeks later, and a stray Ukrainian air-defence missile kills two people in Przewodów, Poland. Fewer than ten incidents a year, and almost all of them on the Black Sea flank.
The pattern changes on the Baltic flank. Russian combat aircraft violate Polish and Estonian airspace with transponders off, the largest drone incursion of the war draws NATO fire over Poland in September, smuggling balloons from Belarus close Vilnius airport ten times in two months, and unexplained drones shut airports and overfly bases from Copenhagen to Belgium.
Ukrainian long-range drones attacking Russian Baltic oil terminals begin arriving over the Baltic states instead, pushed off course by Russian jamming — shot down by Romanian and French fighters on air policing, and hitting a Latvian oil depot and an Estonian power plant. Russian drones meanwhile strike an apartment building in Galați and a Polish field, and the incident count runs at more than twice the 2025 rate.
| Country | Incidents | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 🇷🇴 Romania | 34 | 32% |
| 🇵🇱 Poland | 16 | 15% |
| 🇱🇹 Lithuania | 11 | 10% |
| 🇱🇻 Latvia | 9 | 8% |
| 🇲🇩 Moldova | 8 | 8% |
| 🇪🇪 Estonia | 6 | 6% |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | 4 | 4% |
| 🇸🇪 Sweden | 4 | 4% |
| 🇫🇮 Finland | 3 | 3% |
| 9 other countries | 11 | 10% |
| Attributed to | Incidents | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 🇷🇺 Russia | 56 | 58% |
| Unattributed | 20 | 21% |
| 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 12 | 12% |
| 🇧🇾 Belarus | 9 | 9% |
The war these incursions spill out of has its own tracker. Aircraft and warship losses of the Russia-Ukraine war are tracked separately. This page follows only what crosses into the airspace of countries that are not party to it.
An Italian Eurofighter on NATO Baltic Air Policing duty destroyed an unidentified drone over eastern Latvia before dawn on 14 August, the second time the alliance's quick-reaction force has shot one down over the country this year.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the airspace of states neighbouring the war has been violated repeatedly — by Russian strike drones and cruise missiles straying off Ukrainian targets, by Russian combat aircraft probing the Baltic and the Black Sea, by smuggling and reconnaissance balloons launched from Belarus, and, increasingly since 2026, by Ukrainian long-range drones pushed off course by Russian electronic warfare while attacking Russian Baltic ports.
This tracker logs those incursions one by one: the date, whose airspace was entered, who the incident is officially attributed to, what was flying and how it ended. It counts violations that actually happened — an aircraft or munition that crossed a border, was tracked on radar, was intercepted, or left debris on the ground. Unexplained drone sightings over airports and military bases, many of which have since collapsed under investigation, are deliberately not counted here.
Attribution is recorded only where authorities have made one. Roughly a fifth of the incidents on this page have never been attributed to anyone, and they are shown that way rather than assigned to the most likely suspect.
Over the 12 months through August 1, 2026, 67 were recorded, up from 13 in the previous 12 months. The single-month record is 14 in May 2026.
An aircraft, drone or munition that actually crossed a national border — tracked on radar, intercepted, filmed, or recovered as debris on the ground. Unexplained drone sightings over airports and military bases are deliberately excluded: a large share of the 2025 European sightings collapsed under investigation, with Danish police closing a nine-month inquiry in June 2026 without confirming a single drone over Copenhagen Airport, and other reports resolving into police helicopters, conventional aircraft and radio interference. Counting those alongside recovered wreckage would mix two very different kinds of evidence.
No. Most are attributed to Russia, but a significant minority are not. Ukrainian long-range drones attacking Russian Baltic ports have repeatedly ended up over Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland after Russian electronic warfare pushed them off course, and several were shot down by NATO fighters on Baltic Air Policing. Balloons launched from Belarus — most carrying smuggled cigarettes rather than sensors — have closed Vilnius airport repeatedly. And around a fifth of the incidents logged here have never been attributed to anyone at all; those are shown as unattributed rather than assigned to the most likely suspect.
Romania, by a wide margin, because the Russian strikes on Ukraine's Danube ports happen within a few kilometres of the Romanian border and the Danube Delta is sparsely populated enough that drones and debris routinely cross it. Poland is second, on both the Ukrainian and the Belarusian and Kaliningrad borders, followed by Lithuania, Moldova and Latvia. Moldova is not a NATO member and has no air force of its own to respond.
Every incident on this page is logged individually with a date, the country whose airspace was entered, the country it is officially attributed to where one has been named, and at least one public source link — most often the national defence ministry that reported it. The monthly chart counts those logged incidents; it is not a published statistic, because no institution publishes a running count of European airspace violations. The page is updated as new incidents are reported.
Daily monitoring covers 1,620 days since February 2022, with 97 violations recorded by the primary series over that span.