Estonia said on Thursday that Moscow had briefly sent a fighter jet into NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea during an attempt to stop a Russian-bound oil tanker thought to be part of a shadow fleet defying Western sanctions on Moscow.

Estonia's foreign minister said Thursday that a Russian military jet violated the Baltic country's airspace as its navy tried to detain a Russia-bound oil tanker, accusing it of sailing illegally without a flag.

"The Russian Federation sent a fighter jet to check the situation, and this fighter jet violated NATO territory for close to one minute. [The] Russian Federation is ready to protect the 'shadow