Two Russian unmanned aerial vehicles entered Latvia and crashed. One landed on an oil depot in the town of Rezekne, around 40 kilometres from the Russian border. The fire from the crash was put out before firefighters arrived. Latvian authorities issued drone warnings to residents living near the border and asked them to stay in their homes.

All schools in Rezekne will be closed. The military, police and rescue services are at the crash sites. In the meantime, the Latvian armed forces stated that „the possible threat in Latvian airspace is over". A standard reply - but on the ground, an oil depot is already burning. A reply „after the fire".

This is not the first incident. At the end of March, several Ukrainian drones hit Latvia and its neighbouring countries - Estonia and Lithuania. One collided with a power plant chimney. Another crashed into a frozen lake and exploded. This shows: the airspace on Russia's western frontier is „active" - and it doesn't matter whether the drones are Russian or Ukrainian, the consequences are the same.

For NATO this is a moment of testing. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are members. Article 5 (collective defence) is triggered when a member is attacked. But are two drones on an oil depot „an attack"? NATO has so far refrained from triggering Article 5 in such cases - but every such incident is a test of how far Russia can go without consequences.

For the Balkans this matters because „hybrid attacks" are already being talked about in our airspace. Drones that travel hundreds of kilometres before falling - that's 2026 reality. When that kind of machine can cross several countries without being shot down, it says something about European air defence. It's not strong. And it's not coordinated.

The question: what comes next? If Russia keeps testing - with drones, with jamming missile systems, with cyberattacks - when will NATO respond? And if NATO doesn't respond, what does that tell regions outside NATO, like ours? The questions aren't rhetorical. We'll hear the answers - when something falls on our border.