On Russia’s unacceptable provocative actions and drone incursions into Romania, the Baltic states and Finland

B100311/2026

European Parliament resolution on Russia’s unacceptable provocative actions and drone incursions into Romania, the Baltic states and Finland

(2026/2772(RSP))

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Russia and Ukraine,

– having regard to the UN Charter,

– having regard to the Treaty on European Union (TEU), and in particular Articles 24(3), 42(7) and 222 thereof,

– having regard to the North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949, and in particular Articles 4 and 5 thereof,

– having regard to the European Council conclusions on Ukraine of 19 March 2026,

– having regard to the joint communication of the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 16 October 2025 entitled ‘Preserving Peace - Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030’ (JOIN(2025)0027),

– having regard to the State of the Union address delivered on 10 September 2025 by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,

– having regard to the statement by Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas of 29 May 2026 on the reckless violation of the EU’s airspace by Russia,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas more than four years ago Russia launched its illegal, unprovoked, and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, continuing its 2014 annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of the Donbas in flagrant violation of international law and Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty; whereas Russia’s campaign of aggression has expanded to include deliberate drone incursions into EU territory, alongside systematic disinformation, malign influence and provocative operations targeting European society, reflecting a broader imperial strategy directed against the European Union;

B. whereas Russia’s military build-up along the EU’s eastern flank is ongoing and also includes the territory of Belarus, which is complicit in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and hybrid attacks against the EU, notably via its instrumentalisation of irregular migration and the launch of meteorological balloons, which pose serious security threats, including the constant disruption of civilian aviation, the terrorisation of Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish populations, and damage to local economies;

C. whereas Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania and other Member States have been targeted by Russia’s attempts at destabilisation, which take the form of drone incursions and airspace violations, propaganda and disinformation, electronic warfare, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) interference, cyberattacks and sabotage; whereas Russian intrusions into NATO and EU airspace have occurred frequently since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, constituting clear violations of Member State sovereignty and international law, and have recently intensified to an unprecedented scale;

D. whereas Russia is leading an aggressive disinformation campaign, claiming that the Baltic states are allowing Ukraine to use their territories and airspace for drone attacks against targets in Russia, and threatening to retaliate by targeting alleged drone launch locations; whereas the Baltic states have categorically rejected these Russian allegations, calling them completely baseless; whereas in recent months, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania have reported a significant increase in the number of drone incursions ; whereas on 29 May 2026, a Russian military drone crashed into a residential area in Galați, Romania, injuring two civilians, including a minor; whereas this incident constitutes the first case in which EU citizens have been injured on EU and NATO territory by Russian weapons employed in the bombing of Ukraine; whereas this incident constitutes a serious breach of international law and a violation of an EU and NATO Member State’s sovereignty; whereas it represents a grave and dangerous escalation in Russia’s campaign of illegal aggression;

E. whereas on 19 May 2026, an intruding drone flying in Estonian airspace was shot down by a Romanian fighter jet participating in the NATO Baltic air policing mission; whereas on 20 May 2026, the incursion of an unidentified drone into Lithuanian airspace forced authorities to issue an unprecedented air raid alert, compelling civilians to seek shelter; whereas on 8 June 2026, French NATO fighter jets, participating in a NATO mission, shot down drones flying over Latvia; whereas these drone incursions are a direct result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, with the majority entering EU airspace as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare;

F. whereas on 29 May 2026, a Ukrainian naval drone carrying 500 kilograms of explosives exploded in the Romanian port of Constanța as a result of electromagnetic warfare measures employed by the Russian Federation, causing damage to property but no human casualties; whereas the Ukrainian Navy stated that the device, together with three others which exploded outside the port, had been jammed by Russian electromagnetic warfare;

G. Recalls other serious incidents of Russian violation of the Member States’ airspace, such as in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and others;

H. whereas the security and protection of the EU’s eastern border is an immediate priority and a joint European responsibility, especially given that hybrid attacks are being carried out using modern drone warfare, an area in which the Member States’ capacity is far from complete;

I. whereas drone incidents in the EU’s eastern flank have exposed significant gaps in both military and civilian preparedness; whereas existing radar systems often prove unable to track low-altitude objects, methods chosen for unmanned aerial vehicle interception are economically inefficient and reports on incidents revealed that some air-raid shelters were locked or inaccessible to the public; whereas these failures highlight urgent systemic vulnerabilities in alert and reaction procedures, and broader societal resilience;

J. whereas those recent drone incidents have demonstrated the urgent need for multilayered defence capabilities integrating kinetic and non-kinetic counter-unmanned aircraft systems; whereas drones have become a defining feature of modern warfare and hybrid conflict, and their use in Ukraine has fundamentally reshaped defence requirements and operational doctrines across the continent;

K. whereas European leaders have characterised these incidents as either deliberate provocation caused by Russia or part of a broader pattern of reckless and irresponsible conduct or a consequence of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, while Russia has persistently denied any responsibility;

L. whereas civil protection infrastructure across the EU’s eastern flank remains critically underfunded and inadequate; whereas, according to data published by Romania’s General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations in late 2025, only 10 % of the country’s 5 770 air-raid shelters meet current safety standards, meaning that as little as 5 % of the Romanian population would be able to seek adequate shelter in the event of an aerial attack;

M. whereas the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030 identifies drone defence and eastern flank security as strategic priorities, notably through the European drone defence initiative and the eastern flank watch, underscoring the urgency of building robust and interoperable capabilities to protect EU territory against aerial and hybrid threats;

1. Reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as Belarus’s complicity in it; strongly denounces Russia’s decision to continue its war of aggression while refusing any direct negotiation with Ukraine, despite the recent proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy;

2. Reiterates its call to urgently accelerate the production and delivery of priority military equipment to Ukraine, in particular air-defence systems, ammunition, drones and missiles, at a critical moment when acute shortfalls in air-defence capabilities leave Ukraine’s population and infrastructure increasingly exposed;

3. Strongly condemns Russia’s deliberate, hostile actions against the Member States; condemns unequivocally the Russian drone strike on a residential building in Galați, Romania, which caused direct civilian casualties, constituting a grave and serious escalation; considers that repeated drone incursions and airspace violations into EU countries are not isolated incidents but an integral part of Russia’s broader strategy of intimidation directed against the EU and its allies;

4. Reaffirms its full solidarity with Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania, whose territory, airspace or critical infrastructure have been targeted by Russian hybrid warfare provocations; reaffirms that the EU will not be intimidated by Russia’s campaign of destabilisation and stands united in its determination to defend the security and sovereignty of all EU citizens and to continue to support Ukraine;

5. Highlights that these hostile acts are compounded by an aggressive disinformation campaign seeking to terrorise local populations, spread fear, damage local economies and lay the groundwork for possible retaliatory actions, as in the case of unfounded allegations that the Baltic states allow Ukraine to use their territories and airspace for drone attacks against targets in Russia; condemns the targeting of public opinion in the EU’s eastern flank, particularly in Romania, the Baltic states and Finland, seeking to erode popular support for the EU, NATO and continued solidarity with Ukraine;

6. Reiterates its call for the urgent establishment of a genuine European Defence Union, going beyond existing frameworks, including the White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030 and the subsequent Defence Readiness Roadmap; underlines that deeper integration, coordination and pooling of resources are indispensable to an effective EU response to Russia’s escalating threats; calls for the boosting of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base and its production capacity across the Union through enhanced EU-level coordination, maximising the use of national initiatives and EU instruments such as the European Defence Fund, European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), European Defence Projects of Common Interest (EDPCIs), and the proposed European Competitiveness Fund;

7. Recalls the mutual assistance clause under Article 42(7) TEU and calls, as a matter of urgency, for its full operationalisation, including where a conventional or hybrid attack leads a Member State to invoke it;

8. Emphasises the need for the coherent strengthening of the EU and NATO’s eastern flank along its entire length from the Arctic to the Black Sea, including land, maritime and air dimensions by building capabilities in frontline Member States to combat drones and meteorological balloons, and through the allocation of adequate resources for this purpose; calls for the EU and its Member States to urgently strengthen detection, jamming, interception and neutralisation capabilities along the EU’s eastern flank;

9. Reiterates its condemnation of Russia’s deliberate jamming of GNSS signals in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions, which poses serious safety risks for civilian aviation and maritime transport;

10. Stresses that Russia’s deliberate incursions in the eastern flank of the EU and NATO is intended not only to provoke and destabilise Member States, but also to test and exploit weaknesses in NATO’s detection and response capabilities; recognises that Russia continues its destabilising activities in the Black Sea region, both through conventional and hybrid actions, including through the use of drifting mines, jamming operations and threats to freedom of navigation, making the strengthening of security in this region a strategic priority that must be addressed urgently as a threat to European security;

11. Underlines that the EU’s strategic approach to the Black Sea must become a reality, and calls to accelerate the creation of the Black Sea maritime security hub;

12. Welcomes the recent approval of the 20th package of EU sanctions against Russia and the presentation of the 21st sanctions package; regrets that alumina was not included and calls for its inclusion in the next sanctions package; calls on the Council to swiftly adopt the new package of sanctions and to work on a next package; continues to call for a further strengthening of the EU sanctions on Russia in order to further undermine Russia’s ability to continue waging its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine and threaten the security of other countries; supports additional measures for the upcoming sanctions package targeting the Russian Federation’s energy and financial sectors, as well as a ban on entry into the EU for former Russian combatants who fought in Ukraine, and calls on Member States that continue to support the Russian Federation to cease such support;

13. Calls for the establishment of a horizontal EU sanctions framework specifically designed for hybrid threats, which would exist alongside the hybrid sanctions regime for Russia, to underscore Russia’s active engagement in hybrid operations globally while enabling faster and more systematic sanctioning of entities responsible for hybrid campaigns;

14. Calls for the EU and its Member States to ensure appropriate funding for the construction and renovation of civil air-raid shelters in eastern fank Member States, and to carry out EU-wide information campaigns and civilian exercises to make citizens aware of how to act in the event of an air raid or similar crisis situation; considers that protecting EU civilian populations from aerial threats must be treated as an integral component of European defence readiness, preparedness and resilience; stresses the urgent need for increased financing for security and defence programmes and projects, with a special focus on the eastern flank countries, in the next multiannual financial framework;

15. Underlines that Ukraine has developed, unparalleled operational and industrial expertise in drone production and counter-drone systems; considers, therefore, that deepening EU-Ukraine defence industrial cooperation in this domain is a strategic imperative; calls for the EU and its Member States to fully integrate Ukrainian expertise and industrial capacity into the development of European capabilities to counter unconventional aerial threats; emphasises that in addressing the drone threats coming from Russia, cooperation with the Republic of Moldova – alongside Ukraine – is essential in terms of operational efficiency, situational awareness and the exchange of information; calls on the Member States, therefore, to increase funding for Moldova through the European Peace Facility, also in the light of repeated violations of Moldovan airspace by Russian drones and missiles; further calls on the Member States to include Moldova and Ukraine in joint acquisitions under the EDIP;

16. Calls for the establishment of a European centre of excellence for drone warfare, where Ukrainian instructors pass on their expertise to the Member States;

17. Welcomes the proposals of the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to launch the European drone defence initiative and the eastern flank watch as concrete and timely responses to the escalating threat of drone incursions and hybrid provocations along the Union’s eastern border; stresses that these initiatives are of immediate importance and must be implemented with rigorous political will, funding and urgency; calls on the Member States to actively engage in and contribute to both initiatives; stresses the importance of meeting, or even advancing, the agreed deadlines, namely full operationalisation of the European drone defence initiative by the end of 2027 and of the eastern flank watch by the end of 2028;

18. Stresses the importance of ensuring full interoperability of the European drone defence initiative and the eastern flank watch with NATO’s integrated command and control structure to guarantee a coherent and effective Euro-Atlantic response to hybrid threats along the Union’s eastern flank;

19. Acknowledges the latest developments in advancing EDPCIs aimed at strengthening European defence readiness, highlighting especially the importance of the plans to enhance drone and counter-drone protection and the strengthening of the eastern flank;

20. Welcomes the Commission’s launch of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance as a concrete step towards deeper defence industrial cooperation, in line with the priorities set out in the Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030; stresses the need for Member States to swiftly operationalise this alliance and mobilise industrial actors, including system manufacturers and innovators, to build a comprehensive drone and counter-drone capability;

21. Reiterates its call for the EU and its Member States to act in line with the conclusions of the European Council of 19 March 2026;

22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Secretary General of NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the President, Government and Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and the Russian authorities.