Baltics on alert over Ukrainian drones and Russian electronic warfare

The impact, shooting-down, or near-miss of about a dozen Ukrainian drones over the past two months has once again placed the Baltic region at the center of a gray zone where air safety, electronic warfare, and strategic ambiguity blur together. Ukraine says its attack drones, launched toward ports in the Leningrad region in Russia’s northwest, have been diverted by the enemy and redirected against its allies.

The situation is somewhat paradoxical. On Tuesday, a NATO F-16 shot down one of those Kyiv-launched unmanned aircraft after it entered Estonian airspace. A day later, another such device forced Lithuanian authorities to open the country’s public shelters. The incidents are fueling political tension and public unease in a region long accustomed to viewing Russia as the principal threat, but which is now also beginning to monitor risks stemming from the defense of its main ally.

In Brussels, both the EU and NATO insist the problem’s root remains in Moscow. “[The Ukrainian drones] are there [in the Baltics] because of the reckless, illegal, full-scale attack of Russia, starting in 2022,” NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said on Wednesday. Russia, however, accuses Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania of facilitating Ukrainian operations against its territory — an allegation Rutte called “totally ridiculous.”

“Russia’s public threats against our Baltic States are completely unacceptable,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “Let there be no doubt. A threat against one Member State is a threat against our entire Union,” the German leader added on social media, stressing that Russia and Belarus bear “direct responsibility” for the drone incidents. Allied sources believe that, beyond the possible use of electronic warfare, the Kremlin is seeking to strain relations between the Baltic countries and Ukraine.

Ukraine’s armed forces have had the Baltic region in their sights since the start of the war. Kyiv has orchestrated sabotage operations there against the Russian navy, which has sought in those waters a safer transit route than the Black Sea. In recent months Ukraine has accelerated the launch of bomb-equipped drones toward the northwest. Its objective: to strike facilities in Russia’s extensive oil infrastructure and curb the departure of its vessels to sea, vital for crude exports.

One of the Ukrainian military’s most successful attacks took place on March 25. The military managed to hit a Russian icebreaker in the port of Vyborg, near the Finnish border, about 620 miles from Ukraine. That day, Moscow intercepted at least 390 Ukrainian drones, according to the Kremlin.

To halt the Ukrainian drone swarms, the Russian military has increased interceptions, some via electronic means — a method vastly cheaper than firing missiles. Since March 23, close to a dozen of these diverted attack aerial vehicles have ended up flying over or striking the Baltic states and Finland.

These drones have not affected only the region’s security. The early-May crash of two of these craft in Latvia, one of them against an empty oil storage tank, last week prompted the resignation of the country’s prime minister, Evika Silina.

Disrupting the link

The electronic warfare systems used by both sides typically focus on severing communication between the operator and the drone, causing loss of control. In some cases, the aircraft end up crashing after traveling long distances, as has already happened in Poland and Romania.

Other techniques include so-called spoofing — whereby false navigation data are injected to redirect or crash the drone — and the direct seizure of the drone’s communications to take control of its flight.

Marina Miron, a researcher in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, says it is difficult to determine whether the diversions of Ukrainian drones toward the Baltics are due to spoofing. “In the specific case of the Baltics, it remains difficult to determine whether the alleged deviations in the flight paths of Ukrainian drones were actually the result of signal spoofing,” she says in an email. “An important factor to consider is the limited battery life and range of many long-range Ukrainian drones. If their routes were extended significantly across Baltic airspace, the question arises whether they would still have sufficient endurance to reach targets inside Russia,” the expert adds.

Electronic warfare is not only a weapon used by the invading army. Kyiv issues daily reports on the interception of dozens of Russian drones, mostly through kinetic means such as artillery fire or missile launches, but also by signal disruption or jamming. These electronic methods, however, are unable to repel all the aircraft from the enormous swarms launched by both sides.

Miron argues that electronic warfare can function as an indirect pressure tool on NATO precisely because of the attribution challenge that characterizes it. Its strategic value lies in the ability to produce effects on the adversary and its allies without triggering a direct military response. “Electronic warfare offers a tool that can generate political and psychological effects without crossing the threshold that would provoke a kinetic response,” the researcher says.

The key lies in that structural ambiguity: when navigation systems are interfered with, it is extremely complex to determine the origin or intent of the attack with certainty. That uncertainty amplifies the impact beyond the technical realm, shaping perceptions of security, cohesion among allies, and the allocation of defensive resources. “This creates fertile ground for misunderstandings and, potentially, for dangerous miscalculations,” Miron notes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has offered the Baltic countries operators and experts in drones and electronic warfare to help train their forces. The spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Heorhii Tykhyi, says by phone that Kyiv is in contact with its allies in the Baltics and with Finland over the “incidents” involving drones that have reached their territory. Zelenskiy’s government has apologized to its partners in the region. Publicly, they have blamed Moscow at all times for what happened. Privately, they express concern about the succession of incidents. Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said on Tuesday that he has asked Ukraine to keep the flight paths of its attacks as far from NATO territory as possible.

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