| Date | 17 May 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Incursion |
| Location |
Utena District, Lithuania
55.53, 25.79 (approximate) |
Lithuanian defence minister Robertas Kaunas reported on 21 May that two drones recovered on Lithuanian soil — one on 17 May, the other in March — were of Ukrainian origin. "Their targets were in Russia," he told the news agency ELTA, adding that the most likely cause of their deviation was Russian electronic warfare, with the investigation still assessing other possibilities. The March machine was found in the Varėna district, the May one in the Utena district, where its explosives were neutralised on site.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 17 May 2026 | Incursion | Latvia issues border air alert as drone crosses and leaves |
| 19 May 2026 | Interception | Romanian F-16 shoots down Ukrainian drone over Estonia |
| 20 May 2026 | Incursion | Lithuania issues first-ever red air warning as drone crosses border |
| 21 May 2026 | Incursion | Drone alerts in Lithuania and Latvia scramble NATO aircraft |
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.