Russian Military Escalates Provocation Campaign in Europe

Fresh from leading the Swedish Navy on a cat-and-mouse chase through the Stockholm archipelago for a mystery submarine, Russian armed forces have been out a series of provocative air force maneuvers near NATO territory.

Twenty-six Russian planes — everything from bombers to tankers to refueling planes — have been intercepted by NATO fighter jets. These aerial sorties represent a serious increase in Russian aerial operations on NATO’s borders. From January to early October, NATO jets carried out about 100 intercepts. During the same period last year, the alliance carried out 40 such missions, according to a NATO military officer.

“Single events of this kind is something that we’ve seen in the past, but not this many separate incidents,” said the officer, who didn’t want to be named.

Not only is Russia’s air force undertaking a lot of missions but it is launching sorties with more planes that are traveling along unusual routes, according to the officer. This week, a group of four Tu-95 strategic bombers took off along with four tanker planes and proceeded to fly along the Norwegian coast, where they were intercepted by F-16s belonging to that country’s air force. The tanker jets and two of the bombers then turned back toward Russia, but two of the bombers continued across the North Sea, where they were picked up by British jets. The bombers then continued southwest toward Portugal, where they were once more shadowed by alliance jets. The bombers then made a U-turn and returned to Russia along roughly the same route.

The following photograph was snapped from a British plane as it shadowed one of the bombers through U.K. airspace.

Tuesday and Wednesday, NATO forces tracked and intercepted a collection of at least 15 Russian fighter jets. The planes included MiG-31s, Su-34s, Su-27s, and Su-24s.

And on Wednesday afternoon, Turkish jets intercepted two Tu-95 bombers and their fighter escorts over the Black Sea.

Although the Russian air games are unusual in intensity, none of this week’s flights violated the airspace of NATO members. But several of the sorties did not file flight plans, refused to communicate with civilian air traffic controllers, and turned off their transponders. According to NATO, such actions potentially endanger other aircraft in the area.

These maneuvers speak to the changed security climate in Europe. Russia has significantly upgraded its military and, in the last year, acted aggressive enough to bring relations between Moscow and the West to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. After seizing the Crimean peninsula and fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine, Russian forces have repeatedly tested the periphery of the NATO alliance. Earlier this month, a Russian plane violated Estonian airspace. Last month, Estonia accused Russia of kidnapping an Estonian intelligence agent.

Swedish defense officials now speak of a fundamentally altered security paradigm in the Baltic after Russian planes carried out a mock bombing of Stockholm and violated Swedish airspace in the region.