By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS (Reuters) -Russia’s drone incursions into NATO members risk escalating into “exchange (of) the use of military power against each other”, Lithuanian Foreign Affairs minister Kestutis Budrys told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday, avoiding use of the word “conflict”.
Poland shot down drones that entered its airspace during a widespread Russian attack in western Ukraine on Wednesday, with the NATO member calling the incursion “an act of aggression” and marking the first time a member of the alliance has fired shots in the war.
“No-one is safe here, no-one is safe in the region, no-one is safe in Europe and within the alliance, because those incidents are very close to the situations when everything is going to escalate,” Budrys said.
“We have a strong interest – probably the strongest and biggest one – to avoid these scenarios… Scenarios like we are getting in some situations where we exchange the use of military power against each other”, he said when asked whether such incidents risk dragging NATO into direct conflict with Russia.
The Baltic country, a member of both NATO and the European Union that shares borders with Russia and its ally Belarus, has not received confirmation that the Russian drone incursion into neighbouring Poland was intentional, Budrys said.
Russia has the responsibility to avoid military drones flying into NATO territory, and NATO must send a “strong message to Russia that they’re dealing with something that can escalate,” Budrys said.
“It is in everyone’s interest to avoid this, Russia’s also,” said the minister.
NATO should also work to increase air defences in the Baltics and in Poland, which all border Russia or Belarus, Budrys added.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius, editing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Stine Jacobsen and Hugh Lawson)
