Estonia has said a Nato fighter jet shot down a drone, which it suspects was a Ukrainian projectile knocked off course by Russian electronic jamming, over its territory.

Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said a Romanian F-16 fired a missile and drone debris fell in a marshy area in central Estonia on Tuesday. No damage was reported.

Ukraine reacted by accusing Russia of deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones launched at "legitimate military targets" in Russia, apologising to "Estonia and all of our Baltic friends for such unintended incidents".

Russia has not commented on the latest in a series of recent drone incursions over Nato members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Last week, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned following a political crisis over Russia-bound Ukrainian drones straying into Latvian territory.

Earlier this month, two Ukrainian drones hit an empty oil storage site in Latvia. Ukraine said this was the result of electronic jamming by Russia.

A similar incursion was reported by Estonia and Latvia in March.

Moscow has accused the three Baltic states of allowing Ukraine to use their "air corridors" to strike targets inside Russia – a claimed denied by Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius.

Ukraine has recently intensified its drone and missile attacks against targets in Russia, including oil and gas facilities near the Baltic states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

At Tuesday's news conference, Pevkur said the drone was shot down shortly after 12:00 local time (09:00 GMT) between the lake of Võrtsjärv and the town of Põltsamaa.

He said the projectile had been identified as a potential threat even before it entered Estonia's air space.

"We received early information from Latvia about a drone that had strayed off course, and Estonia tracked the drone until Romanian fighter jets participating in the Baltic air policing mission shot it down," the Estonian defence ministry said in a statement.

Pevkur added he had "immediately" discussed the incident with his Ukrainian counterpart, who apologised for the incident.

"Estonia has not granted permission to use its airspace to anyone other than its allies, and the Ukrainians have not asked for this permission," the Estonian defence minister said.

Local media outlets later published photos of what they said were drone fragments on the ground.

The drone crashed into a forest, about 30m (98ft) from the nearest residential building, Estonia's ERR public broadcaster reported.

It quoted a local resident as saying: "There was a loud bang and I saw the drone fall from the sky."

In Ukraine, Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said "Russia continues to redirect Ukrainian drones into the Baltics" and did this "on purpose, together with intensified propaganda".

In a statement, he said: "We apologise to Estonia and all of our Baltic friends for such unintended incidents," stressing "we use the Russian airspace to get to them".

His comments came just hours after Russia's foreign intelligence agency SVR said that Ukraine was planning to launch its drones against Russian targets from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

SVR reported that Ukrainian drone military personnel had already been deployed at military bases in Latvia.

Latvia dismissed the claim as Russian "disinformation", with the foreign ministry saying Riga "has not given its consent for its territory and airspace to be used to carry out attacks against targets in the Russian Federation".

And Ukraine's Tykhyi said "there is no truth in Moscow's latest set of falsehoods accusing Ukraine of preparing attacks against Russia from the territory of Latvia".

There is growing concern in the three Baltic states on the easternmost flank of Nato that Moscow is planning major provocations to test the resolve of the military alliance.

Last year, more Nato countries agreed to move troops and fighter jets eastwards after more than a dozen drones had entered the airspace of Poland, another member of the alliance.

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A former Conservative defence secretary has quit his job with a missile manufacturer over concerns he broke the rules governing the employment of former ministers.

Sir Grant Shapps resigned as chairman of Cambridge Aerospace on 30 April "to simplify matters" and after the firm secured a multimillion-pound government missile contract.

He said he had had no involvement in the deal or the company's military work and, despite a title of "chairman", had not chaired its board or been a director, but was "one of several co-founders".

Ministerial ethics watchdog Sir Laurie Magnus said he had "allowed a perception of impropriety to develop" and "failed to uphold the standards expected in the rules".

Sir Grant served as defence secretary under Rishi Sunak and has held a number of ministerial posts in government.

He was the Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire from 2005 to 2024, when he lost his seat in the general election.

The now defunct Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) approved his role with the company in 2025 on condition that he play no part in its defence-related work until two years after he left office.

Acoba's decision was criticised by anti-corruption campaigners at the time, including Labour MP Phil Brickell, who said Sir Grant's claim the company was focused on "civilian aerospace" was "stretching credulity" given the firm's own description of itself as involved in "defence tech".

In correspondence with Sir Grant, Sir Laurie questioned whether he had complied with this condition, noting the company "seems publicly to have only one project, which is defence-related".

The watchdog initially contacted Sir Grant following the announcement on 10 April of a contract for Cambridge Aerospace to supply the UK and its Gulf allies with "Skyhammer" interceptor missiles.

Sir Laurie said the announcement "appears to be at direct variance with your original description of the role".

He added: "It is, on the face of it, difficult to reconcile the current scope of Cambridge Aerospace's operations with the restriction that you avoid defence matters entirely, and in the absence of a fresh application for advice in view of changes to the nature of the business of Cambridge Aerospace under your chairship."

In response to Sir Laurie's letters, Sir Grant said he had "scrupulously" followed Acoba's rules and was not involved "in any way, at any time, in any capacity" in the contract between Cambridge Aerospace and the Ministry of Defence.

But he apologised for not seeking further advice as the company began working on defence matters, saying this was "an oversight for which the excessive speed of events is the only mitigating circumstance".

Sir Grant also declined to answer a series of detailed questions from Sir Laurie, citing "legal obligations of confidentiality which I cannot unilaterally waive".

Brickell said he welcomed Sir Grant's resignation, but called for tougher sanctions for former ministers who broke the rules.

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An Iranian journalist based in London has described how he was stabbed in the thigh in a "violent" and "very frightening" attack outside his London home by men accused of working for Iran.

Pouria Zeraati – a journalist and presenter at Iran International, a Persian language TV channel which is not supportive of the Iranian government – told a court he used a builder's utility belt to stop the bleeding.

Two Romanian men are on trial at Woolwich Crown Court accused of the knife attack on 29 March 2024.

George Stana, 25 and Nandito Badea, 21 have both denied charges of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and unlawful wounding.

The prosecution allege Stana and Badea flew in from Romania to carry out the attack as paid proxies working for the Iranian state.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Zeraati described going to his car which was parked near his home in Wimbledon when a man approached him to ask for "£3 change".

He told the court that he was then "grabbed very firmly by a second person" in a way which meant he could not move his arms.

Then, Zeraati said, "the first person took out a knife from his pocket".

"After that, the only thing I was focused on was the knife."

"He started stabbing the back of my right thigh very quickly. All the time, he was looking me in the eye."

He said the men then ran away "very fast" in the direction of Wimbledon Common.

"I noticed nothing had been stolen," Zeraati added.

"At the moment it clicked… it is not a robbery.

"I realised this might relate to the threats I had been receiving."

Zeraati said that when he realised he was bleeding heavily he called 999, and a nearby construction worker helped him to stop the bleeding with a "utility belt".

He told the jury the attack was "violent", "very frightening" and "very shocking".

Zeraati was later taken to hospital, where he was found to have three stab wounds in his upper thigh.

The prosecution said the first man Zeraati saw was Nandito Badea – whose identity Badea's barrister said was "not disputed".

The second man, according to the prosecution, was David Andrei – who is not on trial. The jury has been told he is still in Romania.

The two men are then said to have run to a waiting Mazda, driven by George Stana.

"As soon as they got into the car, it moved off at considerable speed even before the doors of it were closed," Duncan Atkinson KC said.

The three men then allegedly dumped their car and got a taxi to Heathrow Airport, where they took a flight to Geneva.

Atkinson said they "had fled not just the scene of the attack, but had fled the country".

He continued: "The prosecution case is that these defendants, together with Mr Andrei, were recruited to undertake a proxy attack on Mr Zeraati on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

The prosecution told the jury that reconnaissance of Zeraati's Wimbledon address had started in March 2023, a year before the attack.

On 1 March 2023, Zeraati's wife Oldouz Rezvani filmed two men wearing white gloves and blue surgical masks entering the communal garden of their block of flats.

When the men were stopped by police, one of them was carrying a bag with a cricket bat and a hockey stick.

The other man was carrying a pair of scissors and £2,140 in cash. The prosecution said that man was George Stana.

Further reconnaissance of the flat is said to have happened a year later, in February and March 2024.

Atkinson said: "The confrontation with Mr Zeraati that then took place was far from random, accidental or unplanned.

"They had not devoted so much time to surveillance for a robbery, but for the targeted knife attack that in fact then happened."

CCTV from the morning of 29 March 2024 shows Badea, Stana and Andrei leaving their hotel and driving to Zeraati's road. The men then hung around the area for three hours.

"Mr Badea and Mr Andrei were waiting for a sighting of their intended victim, whilst Mr Stana waited in the car, ready to drive them away once the deed was done," Atkinson said.

An eyewitness later told police one of the men "had the appearance of a spy".

The jury heard that Zeraati's wife had herself been threatened in November 2022.

She told police that two men on a motorbike rode up to her near her upmarket gym in Chelsea. Both were dressed all in black.

Speaking in the Persian language Farsi, one of the men said "your husband is our enemy" and "we are going to kill you" before driving away.

In a statement read to the court, Oldouz Rezvani said: "It was an incredibly scary situation. I just wanted to get to the gym to get away from there."

Stana and Badea have both denied charges of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and unlawful wounding.

The trial at Woolwich Crown Court is expected to last up to four weeks.

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