Twenty-eight Russian military planes were intercepted by NATO jets over the Baltic Sea earlier this week, the Latvian government said. Officials on Thursday said the recent upturn in Russian activity over the region is not a sign the Kremlin is “preparing to attack” but is testing NATO defense and reaction times.
NATO confronted 28 planes on Monday--including Russian Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers--over neutral waters near Latvia’s maritime border, reported Bloomberg News. On Sunday, 13 Russian planes were intercepted in the same area.
As Bloomberg notes, the increase in Russian plane activity poses a threat to commercial airliners because they fly sometimes with transponders turned off. There’s been an uptick in the number of Russian planes that have flown in the Baltic Sea in recent months amid tensions between the West and the Kremlin over Russia’s moves in eastern Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last month that NATO’s interceptions of Russian planes in the Baltic region have increased by about three times.
On Thursday, Polish officials said that Russia’s military actions in the Baltic Sea region is a new development and “unprecedented,” according to the BBC.
Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak noted that the majority of the activity was in international waters and airspace. Sweden, which is not a NATO member state, is the country most affected by the airspace incursions, he said.
Siemoniak said that Russia isn’t “preparing to attack” but it is testing NATO’s defenses. That, he added, “does not serve to build good relationships and trust.”
