INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Latvia's armed forces on Monday said the Russian drone that crashed on the Baltic state's territory was an Iranian-designed Shahed equipped
with explosives.Riga had earlier announced that investigators were looking into a drone that had crashed in the eastern part of the country
on Saturday.Latvia, which was once ruled by the Soviet Union but is now an EU and NATO member, has had tense relations with Moscow following
independence, and ties have further deteriorated since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022."The explosive warhead stuck half a meter
deep into the ground and was neutralized on the spot, avoiding detonation," Latvian armed forces commander General Leonids Kalnins told a
press conference.This "allowed our military intelligence officers to gather all the debris and remnants from the drone for further
investigation, details of which will be shared with all of our NATO partners," he said.Because of the ongoing investigation, the general did
not specify how and when the drone was deactivated.Latvian air force commander Colonel Viesturs Masulis said "the drone was not aimed at a
military target in our country
It sort of drifted into Latvia.""The drone was seen by our air defenses while still deep into Belarusian airspace, which gave us time to
react," he said at the briefing.Defense Minister Andris Spruds said the army had already dispatched additional mobile anti-aircraft units to
Latvia's borderlands.Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics had said Sunday that airspace breaches had increased along NATO's eastern
borders.Romania on Sunday said a Russian attack drone targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine had entered its airspace overnight.Fellow
NATO member Poland has also recorded at least two cases of its airspace being violated by Russian missiles or drones attacking Ukraine, most
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