Since mid-March, Ukrainian long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have repeatedly flown over the airspace of the Baltic and Nordic countries, in which some NATO countries recorded UAVs falling over their territory.
Russia accuses NATO members of secretly allowing Ukraine to use airspace to attack targets in Russia, especially energy facilities in the Leningrad region.
The latest serious incident occurred in Latvia, where the failure to intercept 2 UAVs that hit a oil storage facility on May 7 led to the resignation of the Minister of Defense and the collapse of Prime Minister Evika Silina's government.
Speaking at a press conference on May 22, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that Ukraine's UAV operations could ignite a larger conflict.
I am really very concerned about any provocative action that could trigger a mechanism that will then become uncontrollable. If UAVs begin to fly over people in NATO member countries and those UAVs are mainly Ukrainian, then this is a serious problem," he said.
Mr. Fico warned that even a relatively small incident could escalate rapidly if communication between Russia and Western leaders remains frozen.
What will we do if a UAV becomes a provocative act rather than simply a coincidence? A target is attacked, then someone says a NATO member country is attacked and now everyone is fighting together. That would be a terrible situation," he warned.
The Slovak leader also mentioned the issue of diplomatic contact with Russia. "If the leaders have dialogue with each other as they should, the possibility of a UAV provocation leading to a major conflict will be very low. If everyone remains silent and no one wants to talk, even a small provocation can cause disaster," he emphasized.
Earlier this week, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service accused Latvia of allowing Ukraine to use its territory to carry out UAV attacks against Russia. Riga denied the accusation.
