Estonia calls Nato meeting after Russian jets take a 12-minute holiday in its sky

Estonia is not amused. On Friday, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets allegedly wandered into Estonian airspace and loitered for a full 12 minutes — the international equivalent of barging into your neighbour’s garden, nicking a sausage off their barbecue, and then insisting you never left the pavement.

The Estonian foreign ministry called the stunt “brazen,” while Nato scrambled jets from Italy, Finland and Sweden under its please-don’t-touch-our-borders mission.

Russia, of course, denied everything. Its defence ministry claimed the planes were merely enjoying a scenic “scheduled flight” over the Baltic and never crossed the line. According to Moscow, they stayed more than 3km away from Estonian territory — because nothing says innocence like quoting GPS coordinates like a suspiciously sweaty teenager with Google Maps open.

Estonia wasn’t convinced. Prime Minister Kristen Michal called an urgent meeting and officially triggered Article 4 of the Nato treaty, which is basically the alliance’s group WhatsApp: “Guys, we need to talk.”

Things escalated quickly:

Italy scrambled F-35s (shiny, expensive).

Finland sent jets north of the Gulf (because they know that view).

Sweden joined in, because it was feeling left out.

Nato HQ said it showed “reckless Russian behaviour” — which is code for “we’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

Estonia says the MiGs had no flight plan, their transponders were switched off, and they weren’t even talking to air traffic control. Basically: joyriders.

“This is unprecedented,” said Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur. “Twelve minutes inside our airspace. The only right thing to do is push them out.” (Translation: get off my lawn.)

The EU also weighed in, with Kaja Kallas calling it “an extremely dangerous provocation” and Ursula von der Leyen promising that Europe “will respond with determination” — which sounds very impressive, until you remember this is Brussels-speak for “we’ll send a strongly worded PDF.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere on Planet Drama

Poland says Russian drones keep popping over its border like uninvited seagulls.

Romania spotted one too, but it vanished from radar, possibly into another dimension.

Belarus claimed drone navigation systems were “jammed” — which is diplomatic code for “oops, my mate sat on the controller.”

Nato’s solution: move more jets, troops and expensive flying toys to the east. France, Germany, Denmark and the UK have all joined the air-patrol party.

Estonia’s ambassador to Britain summed it up neatly: “If we had to face this alone, we’d be very concerned. Luckily, we have friends.”

Which is the diplomatic way of saying: Please keep your jets out of our garden, Russia. We’ve already called the neighbours.

Flight log: three Russian jets accidentally cosplay as tourists in Estonia

🛫 Take-off: Three MiG-31s leave Russia.
🛰️ Flight plan: none.
📡 Transponders: off.
🎧 Radio: ghosted ATC.

🕐 12 minutes later — they’re in Estonian airspace, doing their best “we’re totally not here” impression.

🇪🇪 Estonia: “Excuse me??”
🇮🇹 Italy: launches F-35s.
🇫🇮 Finland: scrambles jets.
🇸🇪 Sweden: tags in too, because why not.
🇷🇺 Russia: “We were just flying over neutral waters, comrade. GPS never lies.”

Result: Estonia hits the Article 4 button (aka Nato’s group chat panic emoji).

EU chimes in: “Provocation! Dangerous! We’ll respond with PDFs!”
Ursula von der Leyen: “Determination!”
Donald Trump: “Don’t love it. Could be big trouble. I’ll let you know later.”