Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said NATO states should help Kiev “direct” its drone attacks “in the right directions,” blaming a string of Ukrainian UAV incursions into the airspace of the US-led bloc on Moscow.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said this week that Latvia allowed Ukraine to use its territory for potential drone attacks on Russia. Baltic officials have rejected the allegation, while insisting that Ukraine has the right to defend itself. However, they also asked Kiev to control its drones better.
Ukraine “must be more precise” with its drones, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Thursday, echoing similar warnings from Estonia and Finland.
Asked about the comment at a joint press briefing with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the Swedish prime minister accused Russia of trying to “give the impression that other countries are kind of doing things that are not legitimate.”
“We should really not be open for the Russian narrative on this, but instead, of course, help the Ukrainians as much as we can to direct, to help them direct their attacks in the right directions,” Kristersson said.
“It’s my firm belief that the Ukrainians… certainly don’t want their drones to end up on friendly territory,” he said, claiming that “sometimes it’s a matter of jamming, sometimes it’s a matter of other disturbances.”
Rutte also sought to place responsibility for the incidents on Moscow while answering a loaded question involving the claim that Russia jammed or redirected the UAVs. He replied that Ukrainian drones are violating NATO airspace simply “because of the full-scale Russian attack against Ukraine and Ukraine having to defend itself.”
Since mid-March, Ukrainian long-range drones have repeatedly crossed Baltic and Nordic airspace while en route to targets in northwestern Russia, particularly oil export terminals in Leningrad Region.
In Estonia, a “stray” Ukrainian drone crashed into a power-plant chimney in late March, while this week a NATO F-16 fighter jet was scrambled to shoot down another UAV. Lithuania has seen incursions by “suspected” Ukrainian drones on at least four occasions, while Finland and Romania have also reported several incidents.
In Latvia, a failure to intercept a pair of drones that hit an oil storage facility on May 7 triggered the defense minister’s resignation, and the eventual collapse of Prime Minister Evika Silina’s government. Another drone alert on Thursday prompted NATO to scramble fighter jets.
Russia has dismissed attempts to blame it for Ukrainian drones entering NATO airspace, arguing that the incidents show Kiev is either unable to control its long-range UAVs or is being enabled by neighboring NATO states. The SVR warned that NATO membership will not shield countries that help Ukraine launch attacks into Russian territory.