NATO has agreed to upgrade its two-decade-old Baltic Air Policing mission into a full air-defense mission, and the operational catalyst is more specific than “a less peaceful environment.”
Russian electronic warfare units based in Kaliningrad have repeatedly jammed and spoofed GPS signals across the Baltic, causing Ukrainian strike drones to lose their bearings and drift into NATO airspace, according to investigators cited by Defense News.
Estonian and Latvian officials have directly attributed this year’s drone incursions, including the two NATO jets ultimately shot down, to that same jamming effect.
The upgrade removes the political sign-off pilots previously needed before engaging, shifting the decision to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and to pilots in the cockpit, according to Reuters, via US News.
“The air policing mission is meant for peacetime, when fighters react to incidents by escorting. But what is happening today is not a totally peaceful environment,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda told reporters in Ankara, according to Reuters.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said the practical change will be mostly invisible to the public, but described the real shift as “the authority granted to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and to the pilots,” ensuring faster response times, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
The old framework’s limits were already visible before this week.
Last year, NATO jets scrambled after Russia sent a Su-35 to escort a sanctioned “shadow fleet” tanker following an Estonian attempt to detain it, but did not engage.
NATO hasn’t cited that episode as the deciding factor behind this week’s change, but it’s a clear example of the kind of gray-zone incident the old escort-only posture wasn’t built to answer.
The upgrade sits alongside a second Ankara announcement aimed at the same underlying problem.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte unveiled the $40 billion Drone Edge initiative, creating a dedicated counter-drone marketplace for rapid procurement and committing to train five times as many drone operators by the end of 2027, according to Dronewatch Europe.
Twenty member states are already participating. Together, the two measures treat the Baltic flank less as a border to be watched and more as a permanent, low-intensity front where jamming and stray drones are now the baseline threat, not the exception.
