Latvia urges NATO to bolster Baltic air defence after Russian incursions

RIGA (Reuters) -Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics urged NATO on Saturday to increase its protection of the Baltic States, citing Russian violations of the alliance's airspace, and adding to a similar call from Lithuania.

European leaders have said Russia has repeatedly violated NATO airspace, including in the Baltic States and Poland, where earlier this month around 20 Russian drones entered airspace, prompting NATO jets to shoot some of them down.

"Russia continues a pattern of provocations, most recently recklessly violating the airspace of Poland and Estonia," Rinkevics told a meeting of NATO's military committee in the Latvian capital, Riga.

"Transforming Baltic air policing to a Baltic air defence mission with respective rules of engagement should be a priority," he said.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene earlier this month said Vilnius has prepared a position paper on a change in mission to include additional capabilities "such as ground-based air defence assets, sensors and detectors".

Russia has disputed that Russian jets violated Estonia's airspace and said that its drones had not planned to hit targets in Poland.

NATO jets have been patrolling the skies over the Baltic States since 2004 and are on standby to scramble and intercept aircraft that intrude into alliance airspace or fly near its borders.

After the incident over Poland, NATO launched an operation named Eastern Sentry to bolster defences all along its eastern flank. But Baltic officials have said they still need more protection.

NATO makes decisions by consensus among its 32 members and has yet to respond to calls to change the mission. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Rinkevics' remarks.

Just over a week ago, Estonia said three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes before NATO fighter jets escorted them out.

(Reporting by Andrew Gray and Andrius Sytas; editing by Barbara Lewis)