Gold, Oil Jump After Europe “Privately” Warned Russia It’s Ready To Shoot Down Its Jets

Oil and gold spiked, and cryptos (which lately sell off on literally any news) tumbled to session lows on a BBG report that European diplomats have “privately” warned Russia this week that NATO is ready to respond to further violations of its airspace with full force, including shooting down Russian planes, according to sources familiar with the exchange.

According to the report, during a tense meeting in Moscow, British, French and German envoys addressed their concerns about an incursion by three MiG-31 fighter jets over Estonia last week. Following the conversation, they concluded that the violation had been a deliberate tactic ordered by Russian commanders.

Naturally, any responses from NATO countries to Russian incursions into their airspace would mark a huge escalation in tensions in the region, boosting gold and oil’s geopolitical risk premium further, and sure enough prices of the commodities have spiked. 

As we noted earlier, a Russian ambassador warned that if a Russian plane is shot down, it would be the start of war so tensions are clearly running high.

According to Bloomberg, the account of the meeting in Moscow shows that Putin has been given a more forceful warning about the volley of jets and drones into the skies over eastern Europe and offers an insight into the brinkmanship between the two sides. 

During the talks, a Russian diplomat told the Europeans that the incursions were a response to Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, the officials said. The Kremlin said those operations would not have been possible without NATO support and, as a result, Russia considers that it is already engaged in a confrontation including European nations. 

The Russian side took extensive notes during the conversation, the officials said, leading the European team to speculate that they had been instructed to provide a detailed readout of the NATO position up the chain of command.

A German government official confirmed that a meeting took place and that the ambassadors told Moscow that the incursions had to stop. Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday that he’s coordinating with Paris, London and Warsaw and supports “all measures necessary.”

Russian officials have denied their planes crossed into Estonian airspace and insisted that they are not trying to test NATO. They said that a separate incident when drones crossed into Poland was the result of an error. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week said Russian military flights are guided by international rules.

In a stark reversal from his previous position, Trump this week urged Ukraine to win back all the territory captured by Russia “with the support of the European Union” and defined the US role as selling weapons that allies could ship to the battlefield.