The US president has responded to alleged airspace violation over bloc member Estonia
US President Donald Trump has replied affirmatively when asked if NATO states should shoot down Russian aircraft that breach their airspace.
The US president was asked the question at a joint press conference alongside Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on Tuesday.
“Yes, I do,” Trump replied.
Estonia, a Baltic member of the US-led military bloc, last week claimed that three Russian MIG-31 jets breached its airspace. Moscow has denied the claims, saying that the planes did not deviate from their routine flight path, and arguing that NATO lacked evidence.
Tallinn called for urgent consultations with bloc members under NATO Article 4, which allows members to seek talks if they believe their security or territorial integrity is threatened. Bloc members convened in Brussels on Tuesday.
According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the US-led military bloc decides whether to shoot down planes that violate the bloc’s airspace on a real-time case-by-case basis depending on the threat level.
In the alleged Estonian incident, “NATO forces promptly intercepted and escorted the aircraft without escalation as no immediate threat was assessed,” he claimed during a press conference following the meeting.
Earlier this month, another NATO member, Poland, accused Russia of sending at least 19 drones into its airspace – a claim Moscow has dismissed as baseless. The only damage from the incident was allegedly caused by a missile fired by a Polish F-16, which struck a residential building, the news outlet Rzeczpospolita reported last week.
The incident in Poland was a fabricated provocation meant to “undermine a political settlement of the Ukraine conflict," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the accusations were levied without a shred of evidence. The claims “have never been supported by any reliable data or convincing arguments,” he told journalists on Tuesday.
