German Eurofighter jets intercepted a Russian aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea, the NATO member’s air force said on Saturday, in the latest example of Russian aircraft passing over the region without a transponder.
The NATO fighter jets took off from the Latvian town of Lielvarde, to the southeast of the capital, Riga, on Saturday, the Luftwaffe said in a statement posted to social media.
A Russian Il-20 intelligence aircraft, also referred to by its NATO reporting name, Coot-A, was flying without a transponder over the Baltic, the German air force said. Transponders help authorities identify and track aircraft.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
The Baltic Sea is largely surrounded by NATO countries, but the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad also sits around the sea, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. The territory is home to Russia’s Baltic Sea naval fleet, and has a significant naval base.
Sweden joined NATO early last month, increasing the alliance’s presence around the north and west of the Baltic Sea.
In late January 2024, Germany’s air force said it had detected a Russian Il-20 flying without a transponder in international airspace in the southern Baltic Sea. A NATO aircraft “briefly accompanied it before it turned back to the east,” the Luftwaffe said at the time.
France’s military then said at the end of February that its Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets had intercepted a Russian Il-20 aircraft off the coast of Estonia.
At the start of the year, NATO said that its air forces across Europe had scrambled “well over 300 times to intercept Russian military aircraft” approaching the alliance’s airspace in the past year. Most of the intercepts took place over the Baltic Sea, NATO said.
NATO countries will scramble jets “when there are signs of Russian military planes approaching allied airspace in unpredictable ways,” the alliance said.
The war in Ukraine, now in its third year, has prompted many nations, particularly in Europe, to reevaluate their security policies and defense spending. NATO has funneled more assets towards its eastern flank, closest to Russia and Ukraine, since full-scale war broke out in early 2022.
NATO said it has bolstered its air defenses in the region, increasing the number of fighter jets and surveillance flights, as well as its network of ground-based air defenses.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine has created the most dangerous security situation in Europe in decades,” former NATO spokesperson, Dylan White, said in late 2023. “NATO fighter jets are on duty around the clock, ready to scramble in case of suspicious or unannounced flights near the airspace of our allies.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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