Night alerts woke border towns as people heard engine like noises and saw flashing lights. Officials later said drones moved parallel to the border, risking brief airspace crossings.
During the nights leading up to May 3, residents of two counties in eastern Estonia – Ida-Viru and Virumaa – received warnings of a possible air threat. In the message that was sent, it read: “Upon noticing a drone, take cover immediately.” Residents of Narva, a city on the border with Russia, said on social media that around 3 a.m. they were awakened by a noise resembling a boat motor or a lawnmower. About 5:30–6:00 a.m., a message arrived that the danger was no longer present.
Residents of Narva, located on the border with Russia, wrote on social media that around three o’clock at night they woke up to a noise similar to a motorboat or lawnmower. Several anonymous users wrote that they had seen drones flying by with their own eyes; some wrote that they saw flashes and heard sounds of explosions, presumably from the operation of air defense systems.
Postimees notes that the message could have been sent when “a drone that had veered off course, which was likely to fly over the territory and did not pose an immediate threat to residents,” entered Estonia’s airspace; this was not an air alert requesting people to shelter.
Upon noticing a drone, take cover immediately
– Postimees
Reaction and Context of the Events
The head of the Strategic Communications Department of the Estonian Defence Forces’ General Staff, Colonel Uku Arnold, later said that the warning was related to an attack Ukraine was conducting on Russian infrastructure on the night of May 2–3.
The drones moved parallel to the border with Estonia, near the air border, not entering the country’s territory. However, due to the peculiarities of their trajectory, there was a risk that some of them could enter Estonia’s airspace
– Uku Arnold
One drone, according to Arnold, did briefly enter the airspace near Lake Peipus, after which it left it. There were no reports of drones or their debris landing on territory. Authorities did not confirm that drones flew directly over Narva.
Estonia borders Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, whose authorities reported a massive raid of Ukrainian UAVs. The port of Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland was under attack. In April, the Leningrad region experienced several such attacks, while Ukrainian drones repeatedly flew into Estonia and Latvia, as well as Finland. One drone crashed near Narva into a power plant’s pipeline, with virtually no damage. The Estonian authorities acknowledged that the drones were Ukrainian and probably veered off course, possibly due to the operation of Russia’s EW system. In Moscow, a number of media outlets and pro-war figures blamed the Baltic states for taking part in attacks on Russia, allegedly allowing Ukraine to freely use their airspace for drone flights. In Tallinn and Riga, these claims were rejected. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that it warned countries about a “response” if Ukraine is allowed to use their airspace.
The events point to the increasing sensitivity of the region’s airspace, where security concerns are intertwined with informational updates and international assessments of the situation surrounding drone use in conflicts.