RIGA, May 19 (LETA) - The National Armed Forces (NBS) cannot yet confirm that any of the drones detected on Tuesday were in Latvian airspace.

At a press conference on Tuesday evening, representatives of the NBS and the Defense Ministry said that at around 11:00 NBS sensors identified a possible threat in Latvian airspace.

Fighter jets from NATO's Baltic air policing mission were immediately activated. Romanian Air Force F-16 fighter jets, based daily in Siauliai, went to the eastern border of Latvia and patrolled based on radar data. They then headed north towards Estonia. There, a drone was detected entering Estonian airspace, where the fighters successfully intercepted the aircraft and shot down the system with a missile at 12.14.

This operation to neutralize the unmanned aerial system was carried out by the Latvian Air Force Control and Reporting Centre. At the same time, the incident took place in the context of intense electronic warfare, including Russian jamming of GPS signals.

As the situation continued to develop, the NBS had reason to believe that a threat to airspace was possible, initially in the regions of Kraslava and Ludza, and later in the regions of Rezekne and Preili, Madona, Cesis, Gulbene, Smiltene and Valmiera. Against this backdrop, NATO fighters were again activated, this time Portuguese aircraft from Estonia.

As a result of the patrols, no potential threat was identified and accordingly, as of 13.36, the NBS declared the end of the airspace threat.

In the past, a combination of circumstances has affected the operation of sensors and resulted in possible threat signals. At the same time, the Armed Forces admit that another object could have been over Latvian territory.

However, it is currently not possible to confirm 100 percent that an object was indeed present in Latvian airspace, as the analysis of the incident is still ongoing, officials explained.

The Armed Forces stress that in the first incident, the drone that was later shot down in Estonian airspace came from the Russian side and was not in Latvian airspace. In the second case, there is no evidence that the drone had crossed Latvian airspace.

Asked to clarify why it was necessary to activate the drone to warn the population over such a wide area, Maris Tutins, Chief of the Information Analysis and Management Department of the NBS Joint Staff, replied that according to the sensor readings there was a possible threat, but at the moment it is still unclear what kind of object the sensors and radar systems detected.

As reported, the head of the Crisis Management Centre, Arvis Zile, told reporters at midday on Tuesday that a drone had been spotted in Latvian airspace on Tuesday and was no longer in the country's airspace.

Meanwhile, the NBS stressed at the time that one drone from Russia may have entered Latvian airspace. The information was provided as a probability, as the NATO fighters could not visually identify the object.

The NBS do not have any information on the location of the object, i.e. whether it left Latvian airspace or landed on Latvian territory.

As the Armed Forces continued to monitor the potential object, it issued cell broadcast alerts deeper into Latvian territory, not just in the Latgale region. This was the largest number of regions to date whose residents were warned of a threat to airspace. "There was a suspicion that there might be a threat and that other regions, not just those along the border, could also be affected," Zile emphasized.