Russian military aircraft fly close to NATO warships all the time, top commander says

• A Russian aircraft recently flew within a few hundred meters of a German frigate in the Baltic Sea.
• The encounter came amid a series of Russian drone and aircraft incursions into NATO airspace.
• A top commander said Russian military planes regularly fly near NATO warships.

Close encounters between Russian military aircraft and NATO warships have become routine across Europe’s seas, a top alliance commander told Business Insider after the latest incident.

He spoke just days after a Russian surveillance plane flew within a few hundred meters of a German frigate in the Baltic Sea.

“It’s not the first time that a NATO ship has been overflown,” said Commodore Arjen Warnaar, Dutch commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group 1. “This has happened in the past, and it will not be the last time.”

The maritime group is one of NATO’s naval quick reaction forces, and it includes the German Sachsen-class frigate FGS Hamburg that Russia buzzed in mid-September.

The Russian aircraft — an Ilyushin Il-20 surveillance and reconnaissance plane built in the Soviet Union — flew alongside the Hamburg and was a “hindrance” to the warship from around 600 meters away, Warnaar said.

Berlin condemned the encounter, which followed a string of Russian drone and aircraft incursions into NATO airspace earlier this month. The incidents have caused some discomfort among European leaders who have warned that Moscow is deliberately testing the West to gauge its reaction.

Warnaar said this sort of fly-by activity has pretty much occurred on a weekly basis since Russia’s 2014 invasion and illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

“It happens regularly,” the commander said. “It is reported on every once in a while, but not continuously.” This isn’t new, he said. “This has happened continuously throughout the last years.”

These encounters involve a range of aircraft beyond the Il-20, known to NATO as the Coot-A, and include Sukhoi Su-24 tactical bombers and maritime patrol aircraft. The activity also occurs in other waters around Europe, like the High North region and the Atlantic.

Warnaar said these encounters are inevitable, given that NATO and Russia operate near each other in the same areas. He said alliance planes also occasionally fly near the Russians, and it’s unavoidable that the two sides cross paths every now and then.

“If you put military assets from different sides close together in a small area, obviously, there is an inherent risk. That is something that we within NATO are very much aware of,” he said. “I know for certain that the other side is also aware of that risk.”

NATO officials like Warnaar emphasized that interactions with the Russians at sea tend to be safe, routine, and professional.

“Allies maintain a posture of calm professionalism at sea” during such encounters, Cdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesperson for NATO’s Allied Maritime Command, told Business Insider.

As a defensive alliance, NATO’s goal is to “act professionally and minimise any potential miscalculations at sea to the greatest extent possible,” he added.

Russia doesn’t always adhere to the same professional standards, though. The US has accused Russian pilots of engaging in unsafe and unprofessional maneuvers around American aircraft. One incident in 2023 ended with a US combat drone crashing into the Black Sea. Many interactions, however, aren’t particularly noteworthy.

The encounter involving the FGS Hamburg and the Il-20 came shortly after a string of Russian drone and aircraft incursions into the airspace of several NATO countries, including Poland, Romania, and Estonia. When the Russian drones breached Poland’s airspace, NATO F-35s and F-16s shot some of them down, and there were multiple intercepts of the fighter jets that violated Estonian airspace.

The recent incursions have drawn resounding condemnation from European leaders and have raised tensions across the continent as officials warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin is intentionally trying to probe the alliance to test its response to the airspace violations.

Speaking after the Il-20 encounter, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said last week that Putin is trying to “provoke” NATO and “identify, expose, and exploit perceived weaknesses” in the alliance, according to German media reports.

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