| Date | 29 Mar 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Kouvola, Finland
60.87, 26.70 (approximate) |
Several drones violated Finnish airspace near the south-eastern border with Russia, with at least two crashing near Kouvola. Finnish authorities opened an investigation and scrambled F/A-18 Hornets to identify the objects. The next day a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed the drones were Ukrainian and apologised to Finland. Prime minister Petteri Orpo linked them to Ukrainian operations against nearby Russian targets and noted they may have strayed because of Russian electronic countermeasures.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar 2026 | Incursion | Five balloons found along Poland eastern border |
| 23 Mar 2026 | Incursion | Ukrainian drone crashes into frozen lake in Lithuania |
| 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.