Latvia and Finland raise alert levels over Russian airspace threats

Latvia, a European Union and NATO member state, issued an air-threat warning on Friday affecting eastern regions bordering Russia and Belarus, according to the country’s armed forces. As part of the alert, NATO’s Baltic air policing mission scrambled fighter jets to patrol the airspace above the three Baltic states, which include Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Finland, which also shares a border with Russia, simultaneously imposed temporary restrictions on aircraft and vessel movements in the eastern section of the Gulf of Finland in the country’s south, near the Russian border. Finland’s armed forces announced the measures following several similar restrictions imposed in recent weeks due to aerial threats in the region.

The coordinated alerts from both nations underscore growing tensions along NATO’s eastern flank. Both countries have ramped up military vigilance since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with regular reports of Russian military aircraft operating in international airspace near their borders. These incidents have prompted repeated scrambles of NATO fighter jets throughout the Baltic and Nordic regions over the past two years.

The restrictions appear to be precautionary measures rather than responses to imminent specific threats. However, they reflect the heightened state of alert maintained by NATO members bordering Russia, where military incidents and provocative flights have become increasingly common occurrences.

Source: Walla News — Original article in Hebrew.