REZEKNE, Latvia, May 7 (Reuters) - Latvia and Lithuania on Thursday called on NATO to boost air defences in their region after two suspected stray Ukrainian drones came over the Russian border and crashed on Latvian soil, one of them exploding at an oil storage facility.
They were probably launched by Ukraine against Russian targets and fell by accident on the wrong side of the frontier, Latvia's Defence Minister, Andris Spruds, told reporters.
Russia's NATO neighbours have reported a number of such incidents.
"I have raised this with our allied partners, including within the NATO framework in this region, that the defence of our airspace is a shared responsibility", Spruds told a press conference near the crash site in eastern Latvia.
"This is shared (NATO) airspace, and it is necessary to have (military) units here", he said.
The three Baltic region nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are strong supporters of Ukraine in the war with Russia.
Four empty oil tanks were damaged on Thursday morning at a storage facility in Rezekne, about 40 km (25 miles) from the Russian border, and possible debris of a crashed drone was found at the site, police and firefighters said.
Residents told Reuters they heard blasts at the storage site, and firefighters later said they had extinguished a smouldering part of an oil tank.
"People feel threatened ... Some are very angry, and some are afraid. They are packing their suitcases", Rezekne resident Jevgenijs Sadovskis told Reuters.
SCHOOLS CLOSED
Latvian authorities issued drone alerts to residents along the Russian border between 4:09 a.m. and 08:51 a.m. local time (0109 and 0551 GMT) on Thursday, asking them to stay indoors.
All schools were closed in several municipalities along the border on Thursday, authorities said.
French military jets of the multinational NATO Baltic air police mission in Lithuania were summoned to the site during the alert, the Latvian army said.
The defence minister of neighbouring Lithuania, Robertas Kaunas, said he expects NATO to increase airspace security in the region.
"Strengthening anti-drone defence in our region should be a particular emphasis (for NATO), and additional capabilities are welcome here," Kaunas said in Vilnius.
"Because this is where we have threats today, and they are not theoretical but real: drones are crashing into NATO territory", he added.
Several stray Ukrainian military drones hit Latvia and its Baltic NATO neighbours Estonia and Lithuania in late March. One slammed into a chimney at a local power station while another crash-landed in a frozen lake and exploded.
The Ukrainian drones were believed to have been launched to strike military targets in Russia.
The three Baltic countries have never allowed their territories and airspace to be used for drone attacks against targets in Russia, their foreign ministers said in April.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Janis Laizans in Rezekne; Editing by Sonali Paul, Jacqueline Wong and Lincoln Feast.)
