| Date | 23 Mar 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Lake Lavysas, Lithuania
54.17, 24.42 (approximate) |
Night-time security camera footage captured a drone crossing into Lithuanian airspace and crashing into the frozen Lake Lavysas, some 20 km from the Belarusian border, where it exploded. An army spokesperson initially judged that it had come from Belarus. On 24 March the Lithuanian prime minister reported that it was in fact a Ukrainian drone aimed at Russia that had strayed from its flight path, adding that the episode was "part of a wider security picture" created by the war.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Mar 2026 | Incursion | Russian Su-30 violates Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland |
| 21 Mar 2026 | Incursion | Five balloons found along Poland eastern border |
| 25 Mar 2026 | Strike | Ukrainian drone hits Auvere power plant chimney in Estonia |
| 26 Mar 2026 | Strike | Russian drone detonates four kilometres inside Romania |
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.