The incidents raised questions in Latvia about whether the drones had mistakenly identified the site as a target. — There are early forms of artificial intelligence in long-range drones, said LSM Modris Kairišs, head of the Latvian Armed Forces Autonomous Systems Competence Center.
“They're looking for goals programmed into them. It is possible that the drone hit the barrels of the oil terminal, visually similar to the targets in Russia, he added. However, Latvian officials said there was currently no direct confirmation as to why both drones crashed in almost the same place.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine: Russia is doing it on purpose
According to LSM, Ukrainian drones entering Baltic airspace are likely “victims” of Russian electronic warfare systems designed to jam satellite navigation signals. GPS works by triangulating the time it takes for the signal to travel between the satellite and the device, giving the drone an external reference point that allows it to adjust its flight path accordingly.
Experts say Russia is using both GPS jamming and “spoofing,” which involves transmitting false satellite timestamp signals to gradually change the drones' flight trajectories without triggering autopilot corrections.
As a result, drones may “believe” they are staying on a programmed course when in fact they are flying somewhere else. On May 19, the spokesman of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Heorhiy Tychy, commenting on the shooting down of a drone over Estonia, announced that Russia was deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones towards the Baltic countries, using electronic warfare systems.
— Moscow is doing this on purpose, combining it with intensified propaganda. We apologize to Estonia and all our Baltic friends for these unintentional incidents, he said.
NATO increases monitoring over the Baltic airspace
LSM reported that NATO fighters stationed in Estonia and Lithuania are regularly picked up when unidentified drones or potential threats to the airspace near Latvia are detected. Earlier this week, NATO aircraft participating in the Baltic Air Policing mission shot down a drone in the airspace of the Baltic states for the first time.
According to LSM, Romanian Air Force F-16 fighters conducted an interception operation over Estonia on May 19. Experts told the website that drone detection remains one of the main challenges for modern air defense systems because many drones fly at low altitudes and are difficult to detect by traditional radar systems designed for conventional aircraft.
The Baltic countries have reported several incidents involving drones in recent months. On March 23, Lithuania reported that a suspicious drone entered its airspace and crashed on a frozen lake near the border with Belarus. Lithuanian authorities suggested that the drone may have originally attacked the Russian port of Primorsk during Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
