Russia's Defence Ministry has denied its aircraft violated Estonia's airspace, after Tallinn reported three fighter jets crossed into its territory without permission and remained there for 12 minutes.
Friday incident, described by Estonia's top diplomat as an "unprecedentedly brazen" incursion, happened just over a week after NATO planes downed Russian drones over Poland, heightening fears that Moscow's war on Ukraine could spill over.
In an online statement published early on Saturday, Moscow stressed its fighter jets had kept to neutral Baltic Sea waters more than three kilometres from Estonia's Vaindloo Island in the Gulf of Finland.
"On September 19, three MiG-31 fighter jets completed a scheduled flight from Karelia to an airfield in the Kaliningrad region," it said, referencing t