MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today, the United Nations Security Council is set to discuss the latest incident where Russian military aircraft entered NATO airspace. The U.N. meeting was requested by the nation affected, Estonia. Teri Schultz reports there's a growing call from NATO's eastern flank to use force to stop Russia's provocations.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: Twelve minutes. It doesn't seem so long, but compared to the minute or two Russian fighter jets have previously lingered in NATO airspace, this extended intrusion Friday night was enough for Estonian leaders to sound the alarm at NATO headquarters in Brussels and all the way to the United Nations Security Council.
MARKO MIHKELSON: This was the most serious violation of our airspace since 2003.
SCHULTZ: That's Marko Mihkelson, head of the Estonian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. Mihkelson was part of emergency parliamentary and government meetings in Tallinn over the weekend. He's among those politicians saying it's time to consider shooting down the next Russian jet that crosses the line.
MIHKELSON: We have to make sure that Russians will understand that this is not excluded. The use of force is not excluded if this is going to be repeated.
SCHULTZ: Moscow denies entering Estonian air space. Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur, meanwhile, says the Finnish, Swedish and Italian jets that scrambled to escort out the Russian planes were prepared to shoot them down if they had endangered the population. Kristi Raik, director of the International Centre for Defense and Security in Tallinn, says then NATO should make that message more clear to the Kremlin sooner rather than later.
KRISTI RAIK: Does it take NATO citizens getting killed? Is that what it takes? So this is, indeed, I think, part of the response that we should be able to convince the Russians that we will shoot down if there is another serious violation.
SCHULTZ: But after all, NATO only shot down Russian drones for the first time less than two weeks ago when almost 20 of them were flown into Polish airspace. And that incident, says hybrid threat expert Hanna Smith, is one reason the Estonian airspace incursion is more unsettling than it otherwise might have been. It's part of a pattern.
HANNA SMITH: There is a feeling that, OK, we need to somehow try to put a stop to this type of an escalation.
SCHULTZ: But since Estonia doesn't have its own air force, that we means its NATO allies. They'll meet an emergency session at Tallinn's request on Tuesday. For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Helsinki.
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