On Sunday night, a combat drone crashed into Lake Peipus and exploded, according to the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA). The incident served as a reminder of just how close the Russia-Ukraine war really is to NATO's eastern flank.

Technically, it is no longer accurate to say the war is merely "close" to NATO borders, because actual, kinetic warfare — specifically in the form of Russian (combat) drones — has already been reaching NATO territory for two years.

In early autumn 2023, when Russia resumed its attacks on Ukraine's Danube ports, Romanian border guards discovered the first fragments of Russian combat drones near their border villages. Initially, Bucharest denied Ukraine's claims that Russian drones had entered Romanian airspace. But within days, defense officials confirmed the opposite. Between September and December 2023, multiple drone impact craters were discovered in the Danube Delta.

That was just the beginning. In the summer of 2024, Romania's national alert system issued a warning in the Tulcea region as Russian drones again veered into Romanian territory. Once again, fragments were found on Romanian soil and residents began asking why there was no stronger response to drones breaching NATO airspace.

The question resurfaced on the night of September 7–8, 2024. As another Russian drone entered Romanian airspace, two Romanian F-16s were scrambled and tracked the drone — but did not open fire. The drone was instead escorted back over Ukraine.

According to public explanations, this seemingly strange response was dictated by Romanian law. It turned out that, in peacetime, the Romanian military had no mandate to shoot down drones unless they posed a direct threat to the Romanian state. By the spring of 2025, new regulations had been adopted allowing "stray" drones to be neutralized even during peacetime.

That same week, while Romanian F-16s were escorting a Russian combat drone, a similar drone entered Latvia. Approaching from Belarus, it was detected by Latvian military radar while still in Belarusian airspace. Nevertheless, the slow-moving aircraft was allowed to cross into Latvian airspace and crash in the Rēzekne area near the village of Gaigalava. The explosive payload was rendered harmless.

A vigorous public debate erupted: why hadn't NATO's air policing jets — specifically Germany's Eurofighters — been scrambled to intercept and neutralize the drone in midair? Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs made several sharp statements, including criticism directed at NATO. Latvia's Ministry of Defense, which delayed disclosing the incident, faced harsh criticism.

A year later, in July 2025, the threat reached Lithuania. First, a decoy drone made of plywood and foam that had crossed the border from Belarus crashed. A few weeks later, a real combat drone flew directly over Vilnius before ultimately landing at a Lithuanian military training ground. The wreckage, containing two kilograms of explosives, wasn't discovered until four days later. Lithuanian military radar had failed to detect the drone's entry.

Lithuania responded more decisively than Romania or Latvia. A temporary no-fly zone was imposed along a 90-kilometer stretch of the Belarusian border, additional military forces were dispatched to the frontier and the government formally appealed to NATO for reinforcements to protect its airspace.

Poland, meanwhile, had a false alarm in 2024. But on August 20 of this year, a Russian drone crashed in the village of Osiny in Lublin Voivodeship. The explosion scorched a patch of farmland and left behind a mangled engine. The blast shattered windows in nearby buildings. Polish military radar had failed to detect the drone, which had flown roughly 100 kilometers across the Ukrainian border — giving them several minutes to respond.

In Estonia, the situation appears similar to that of other NATO border states. The Defense Forces' ability to detect and identify low-flying drones remains fragmented. The radars currently monitoring Lake Peipus — where Sunday night's explosion occurred — belong to the PPA and are shoreline systems that can see limited activity above the surface. This capability allowed the PPA to provide statements to ERR (unlike the Defense Forces). The PPA is in the process of acquiring radars suited for detecting low-flying drones, with the first three Estonia-made mobile systems expected to be deployed later this year and additional units to be procured.

The Defense Forces also plans to acquire drone-detection radars. There is no plan to duplicate efforts; instead, the goal is to create a complementary radar network. This shows that the Estonian state is taking the issue seriously. Still, a few major caveats remain.

As with other recent defense planning and development efforts, the drone threat in particular raises the question of whether certain urgent capabilities should be procured through an expedited, exceptional process. The explosion over Lake Peipus reminded us that there is no reason to believe aerial warfare is somehow farther away from us than it is from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia or Romania.

NATO's drone security crisis has now reached the threshold of our national border, yet we are still approaching this capability gap within the peacetime legal framework — through ordinary procurement procedures, likely to be followed by disputes and delays.

Having reviewed the Defense Forces Organization Act and the Law Enforcement Act in light of this incident, I found no clear legal provision granting the Defense Forces the explicit right to shoot down a dangerous military drone that has wandered into Estonia (whether it's Russian, Ukrainian or of unknown origin) during peacetime. There is a clearly stated right to neutralize threats posed by civilian aircraft — an addition made in response to the post-9/11 "renegade aircraft" scenario.

Personally, I do not believe that Estonia would fail to shoot down a drone if there were a serious threat to civilian lives (even though it isn't always the wisest move). We also have NATO air policing jets stationed here, which operate under their own rules of engagement.

But as a former defense bureaucrat, reading the law, it seems to me that the current legal framework governing the Defense Forces' use of force and engagement during peacetime remains vague — particularly in the context of empowering air defense units under these newly emerged conditions. In other words, we should ensure we are not caught in a situation like Romania was in 2023. Clear rules of engagement protect not only the state — but also those who are tasked with using force on its behalf.

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