| Date | 6 Oct 2025 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Vilnius Airport, Lithuania
54.64, 25.29 |
Weather balloons carrying black-market cigarettes forced the closure of Vilnius airport, with at least 14 launched from Belarus and 30 flights cancelled. The pattern repeated through October until Lithuanian prime minister Inga Ruginienė described the incidents on 27 October as "a tool of hybrid aggression against Europe" and said the army was taking all necessary measures to bring the balloons down. Lithuania closed its border with Belarus on 26 October, first for a day, then until 30 November.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Sep 2025 | Incursion | Three Russian MiG-31s violate Estonian airspace for 12 minutes |
| 19 Sep 2025 | Incursion | Russian fighters violate safety zone of Polish drilling platform |
| 22 Sep 2025 | Incursion | Unidentified drones close Copenhagen and Oslo airports |
| 17 Oct 2025 | Interception | Drone shot down over US Army base at Camp Reedo |
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.