| Date | 23 May 2026 |
| Tracker | European Airspace Violations |
| Type | Strike |
| Location |
Lake Drīdzis, Latvia
55.98, 27.29 (approximate) |
A drone came down into Lake Drīdzis in the Kombuļi rural municipality and exploded on impact. A search operation involving a State Police drone, a State Fire and Rescue Service boat and National Armed Forces personnel recovered debris said to be from the machine. No attribution was established.
| Date | Type | Incident |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 23 May 2026 | Interception | Lithuanian border guards bring down homemade drone from Belarus |
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.