NATO rejects any Russian threat

NATO warns Russia that it will use all means to defend itself, amid repeated breaches of its airspace.

Sorin Iordan, 24.09.2025, 13:50

NATO has warned Russia that it will employ all available military and non-military tools to defend against what it called Russia’s “increasingly irresponsible” behavior. The warning came on Tuesday from the North Atlantic Council, with the representatives of the 32 Alliance members meeting after Estonia called for consultations under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty after three Russian planes breached that country’s airspace.

NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said Russia’s recent actions are either intentional or “incompetence”, but that this behaviour must stop because it threatens human lives, adding that either way, if necessary, the allies will do what is needed. The Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth told Estonia’s defence minister Hanno Pevkur that Washington stands by all its allies and that any incursion into NATO airspace is unacceptable. A week before the incident in Estonia, around 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, causing the NATO aircraft to shoot down some of them and with the Alliance strengthening Europe’s eastern flank. After this incident, Warsaw warned Moscow that Poland will shoot down the next Russian device that will violate its airspace.

The Kremlin rejected the threat. The spokesman for the Russian president, Dmitri Peskov, said the accusations that Russia breached the airspace of other countries were not supported by viable data or convincing arguments.

In this context, the NATO ambassadors emphasised the importance of the Eastern Sentry, a military operation aimed at defending the airspace of the allies on the eastern flank, including Romania. Colonel Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, said additional military hardware may be deployed as part of this activity to counter threats on the skies of Romania or any other allied state, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

In Bucharest, Romanian president Nicuşor Dan, called the Country’s Supreme Defence Council for Thursday to establish the protection measures against Russian drones entering the country’s airspace, as was the case a week ago, when a Russian drone orbited for around 50 minutes in an area in south-eastern Romania, and to work out the procedures establishing the chain of command in these situations.

NATO is increasingly vexed with Russia’s provocations on the eastern flank in the context of the war this country has been waging in Ukraine. In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York, US president Donald Trump stood in favour of a firm response from the Alliance to any future incursions into its airspace. Trump also said that, amid the major economic problems faced by Russia, Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in the position to fight and regain the land lost to Russia.