NATO Fighter Jets Scrambled to Intercept Russian Reconnaissance Plane

German fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept a Russian reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, as the newly enlarged NATO alliance seeks to bolster its deterrence of potential aggression by Moscow in northeastern Europe.

Swedish forces spotted the Russian Il-20 aircraft, after which two German Eurofighter aircraft scrambled to meet it, flying out of an air base close to the German town of Laage.

The Russian plane flew close to Swedish airspace southeast of the Blekinge area, not far from the strategic island of Gotland. Authorities in Sweden said the Russian plane flew into the country's "flight information region."

"Together with our [Swedish] partners we checked a [Russian] reconnaissance aircraft at Gotland," the German Air Force wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. The post was accompanied by a photo showing the two Eurofighters closely shadowing the Il-20 aircraft.

The Swedish Air Force also posted an image of the intercept to its social media channels. "Today, our incident route carried out the visual identification of a Russian Il-20 (signals reconnaissance) that flew into the Swedish flight information region southeast of Blekinge," the statement read, noting that the subsequent intercept was conducted by German aircraft.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email for comment.

Aerial intercepts of Russian aircraft are common in the airspace around NATO borders. The Russian Air Force routinely conducts reconnaissance flights around NATO territory and also uses long-range bombers to probe allied defenses and readiness.

NATO states do the same around Russian frontiers, and Western reconnaissance flights around Russia's western borders—including near-daily sorties in the Black Sea—have increased significantly since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This includes both manned and unmanned aircraft.

At times, aerial intercepts have been fraught with the danger of direct NATO-Russia escalation. In March 2023, for example, a Russian fighter jet rammed and downed a U.S. drone over the Black Sea. Last month, Poland scrambled fighter jets in response to a Russian ballistic missile fired at a Ukrainian target that briefly crossed into Polish airspace.

The Baltic Sea is emerging as another key theater of competition between Russia and its Western adversaries. The addition of Finland and Sweden to the NATO alliance has shifted the strategic balance there, prompting some officials to declare the sea a "NATO Lake."

The sea is vital for Russia, as it provides access to the Atlantic Ocean for Russian military and commercial shipping operating from the Kaliningrad exclave and from St. Petersburg.

The contest in the Baltic region will take place in the air, too. Earlier this month, German fighter jets were scrambled to intercept another Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft that was flying over the Baltic Sea without a transponder—an electronic device used to transmit an aircraft's position so as to ensure safe air traffic.

Correction 4/11/24, 04:25 a.m. ET: This article was changed to say that the Russian aircraft traveled inside Sweden's "identification zone," not into Swedish airspace.