Russia's 'close military encounters' with Europe documented By Jonathan Marcus

BBC diplomatic correspondent Published duration 10 November 2014 Related Topics Ukraine conflict

image copyright Reuters image caption Russia's actions in Ukraine and Nato's response has led to an escalation of military tension across Europe

The growing strains between Russia and the West prompted by the Ukraine crisis are now sending ripples of military tension across Europe.

Nato has responded to Russia's incursions into Ukraine by stepping up its ties with Kiev and bolstering air patrols and exercises with its eastern and central European members.

Russia in turn has decided to pursue a more active, many might say a more aggressive, military policy of its own, returning to the sorts of flights and activities from the Cold War years that were used to regularly test out Nato defences.

The European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, has produced a detailed study of this more assertive Russian activity.

Close encounters

Entitled Dangerous Brinkmanship: Close Military Encounters Between Russia and the West in 2014 , it chronicles almost 40 specific incidents that have occurred during the past eight months.

It says these "add up to a highly disturbing picture of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area".

Key incidents by date

Apart from routine or near routine encounters, the report identifies "11 serious incidents of a more aggressive or unusually provocative nature, bringing a higher level risk of escalation".

These include harassment of reconnaissance planes, close over-flights over warships and Russian "mock bombing raid" missions.

It also singles out "three high-risk incidents which," in its view, "carried a high probability of causing casualties or a direct military confrontation".

The fact that one of these was a narrowly avoided collision between an SAS civil airliner taking off from Copenhagen and a Russian reconnaissance plane shows that these are not just military games.

image copyright EPA image caption Russian military flights into Europe have increased over the past year

There is a very real risk of calamity.

The Russian military aircraft was not using a transponder to identify its position.

Losing control

The second high-risk incident involved the abduction of an Estonian security service operative from a border post on Estonian (and hence Nato) territory.

He was later taken to Moscow and accused of espionage.

Then of course there was the major submarine hunt by the Swedish authorities last month, with the Swedes warning that they were ready to use force to bring any submerged vessel to the surface.

media caption Sweden says there have been three sightings of a submarine near Stockholm since Thursday

The danger, the report indicates, comes from both sides.

"The mix of more aggressive Russian posturing and the readiness of Western forces to show resolve, increases the risk of unintended escalation and the danger of losing control over events."

Unresolved tension

The European Leadership Network makes three broad recommendations.

It says that "the Russian leadership should urgently re-evaluate the costs and risks of continuing its more assertive military posture, and western diplomacy should be aimed at persuading Russia to move in this direction".

It says that "all sides should exercise military and political restraint".

And it says that "all sides must improve military-to-military communication and transparency".

There is probably much that is sensible here.

But given the unresolved tensions over Ukraine, the overall trajectory of current Russian foreign policy and the pressures coming from those in Nato who feel most threatened, like the Poles, this pattern of behaviour risks becoming the new norm.

image copyright Reuters image caption Nato has been scaling up its military drills in eastern and central Europe

Indeed the growing frequency and scale of Nato military exercises in eastern and central Europe is only likely to encourage the Russians to bolster their own military manoeuvres.

Procedures and operational patterns from the Cold War may need to be re-learnt.

We are not back in the 1950s.