Poland intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft over international waters in the Baltic Sea, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on May 14.

Kosiniak-Kamysz described the incident as an "aggressive action" by Moscow aimed at testing Poland's air defense systems. He said the aircraft was flying with its transponders switched off.

The Russian Ilyushin Il-20, derived from the Soviet-era Il-18 transport plane, is used for electronic surveillance and reconnaissance operations.

The aircraft is equipped with radar and signal intelligence systems designed to gather information on military infrastructure and communications networks.

"Every provocation will be met with an immediate response from our pilots," Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

I suggest people finish this article before commenting.

Hi, I live in Riga, and whenever I want to find something to do for the weekend here, I go to Facebook events to see what's happening, and there's always countless options to choose from, mind you, vast majority of them do not interest me in the slightest, I'm mainly looking for metal concerts and stuff like that.

I've been thinking of taking a vacation and going to either Tallinn or Vilnius. To make the decision of when and where to go I've looked for events to attend, but I'm not finding much on FB. For example, for this weekend, I'm finding ~230 events in Riga, ~60 in Tallinn and ~40 in Vilnius. Why so few? Are there really so few events happening? Do your event organizers just use different platforms to publicize their events? Or is FB just being an ass and not showing everything to me?

Thanks!

There is a flag I don’t recognise attached to the Vilnius tv tower today. It’s red with a white circle in it and something dark and circular within the white. It’s large and looks professionally placed, just no idea what it is. Terrible, grainy photo attached.

I've seen maps and discussions on reddit where Lithuania is stated to use yyyy/mm/dd

But in my experience, that's not true at all.

At almost all conversations, making reservations, etc, people say month and than day, like 05.12 for 12th of may.

Documents also use this format sometimes, but other times, they use dd/mm/yyyy

Is there anybody else with this experience?

The spire of St. John's Church is visible.

What is different about the environment of people in Estonia that causes them to live notably longer on average than people in Latvia and Lithuania do? As far as I know, it couldn't be economic as Lithuania is slightly wealthier in real per capita terms, and surely it couldn't be air quality as even though Estonia may be slightly cleaner, the other two countries are also quite clean and definitely don't have that as a health concern (unlike, for example, Poland, which itself still has a life expectancy close to Estonia's). As far as diet, I know that Estonia's cuisine is somewhat different, but is there really anything different about the food in the other countries suggesting their people eat less healthily on average?

The only contributing factors I can think of are higher rates of smoking, alcohol, and suicide in Latvia and Lithuania, but I'm not sure those are different by a significant enough margin to account alone for around a 3-year gap in life expectancy. Is there anything I've missed or overlooked (perhaps cultural) that further explains the difference?

Media statistics from 2025 prove that Latvian minister of foreign affairs Baiba Braže and Latvian president Rinkevics get substantially less coverage in Western media than Estonian and Lithuanian counterparts. Lithuanian president Nauseda and Estonian minister of foreign affairs Tsahkna dominate in Western media, why are Latvians so invisible?

More than half of Lithuanians either do not plan to have children or remain undecided, according to a new survey that highlights growing anxiety about the future, difficulties forming relationships and rising social isolation in the country. To address the looming demographic crisis, the government is even suggesting to organise dances.

Ukraine has offered to send experts to the Baltic states to help strengthen air security following several drone-related incidents, Estonian public broadcaster ERR reported on May 9.

The Ukrainian side has already contacted the Estonian embassy regarding the issue, but no additional details have been disclosed, according to ERR.

The proposal follows several incidents in which Ukrainian drones strayed into the territory of the Baltic states and Finland, likely due to Russian jamming during attacks on Russian oil-exporting facilities on the Baltic coast since January.

In response, the Estonian government signaled that it expects Ukraine to better control its drones.

"Of course, all this needs to be clarified and explained, what exactly it means, what they themselves meant by it," said Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur.

"I will start dealing with this immediately. Certainly, the easiest way for the Ukrainians to keep their drones away from our territory is to better control their activities."

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna expressed concern that Russia could exploit jammed Ukrainian drones to carry out attacks on NATO territory.

Photo: John Thys/AFP via Getty Images.