| Date | 7 Sep 2024 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Rēzekne Municipality, Latvia
56.33, 27.33 (approximate) |
A drone crashed in Rēzekne Municipality in eastern Latvia after flying through Belarusian airspace. The incident followed a warning by the Latvian defence minister a week and a half earlier that Riga would mount a "concrete reaction" if drones continued to cross onto NATO territory. Rēzekne would be hit again in May 2026, that time by a Ukrainian drone striking an oil storage facility.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Sep 2024 | Incursion | Russian drone wreckage searched for near Periprava |
| 27 Sep 2024 | Incursion | Russian drone briefly enters Romanian airspace |
| 17 Oct 2024 | Incursion | Unidentified aerial target tracked 14 km inside Romanian airspace |
| 19 Oct 2024 | Incursion | Second unidentified target detected off Sfântu Gheorghe |
GlobalMilitary.net's 2026 inventory snapshot shows nine NATO members — Iceland, Luxembourg, the three Baltic states, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Slovenia — hold no fixed-wing fighters, attack aircraft or bombers and depend on Allied air policing.
GlobalMilitary.net's incident log counts 45 established violations of European airspace between January 1 and August 16, 2026, against 31 for the whole of 2025 - and almost all of the growth sits in incidents that ended with a shootdown or an explosion on the ground.
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.