Finland and Sweden scrambled fighter jets on Sept. 24 to intercept supersonic Russian military aircraft over the Gulf of Finland, carrying out the first joint response of its kind. The Finnish Air Force and Swedish Air Force moved after Russian aircraft were detected in international airspace.
Jonas Wikman on the scramble
The Russian formation included a Tu-134 transport plane, MiG-31 interceptors, and Su-30 multirole fighter jets. Jonas Wikman, commander of the Swedish Air Force, said, "This is what close cooperation looks like in practice," and added, "Built over years on trust and strong personal relationships, we can now operate seamlessly together — as air forces, as nations and as Allies."
The response came after a Sept. 18 incident in which Russian aircraft entered Estonian airspace before being intercepted by NATO aircraft. Those flights sit alongside other Russian military incidents in the Baltic region, including drones entering Polish airspace, a Mi-8 helicopter crossing from Kaliningrad into Poland, and drones crashing in Romania and Moldova.
Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg
Vladimir Putin spoke on Friday at the St. Petersburg International United Cultures Forum and said, "Many people in Europe say they expect an attack from Russia and therefore claim they must prepare for war with Russia." That warning sat in direct contrast to the air activity that followed over the Gulf of Finland, where Finnish and Swedish fighter jets were already in the air with NATO-style coordination in practice.
The first joint scramble gives Finnish and Swedish air crews a new shared reference point for future interceptions, but the operational question now is the same one hanging over the Baltic region: which Russian route or formation will force the next response from the Finnish Air Force and Swedish Air Force.
UK fighter jets intercept Bear-F over Norwegian Sea sits in the same pattern of allied air policing that has become more frequent across northern airspace.
