Russian aircraft were detected flying in international airspace near the Baltic states, but had not activated their transponders.
NATO fighter jets were scrambled to intercept five Russian military aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea without flight plans or active transponders, the Latvian Air Force confirmed on Saturday.
The Russian planes were identified on two separate occasions, on Friday and Saturday, prompting a rapid response from NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission.
According to the Latvian Air Force, the Russian jets were detected flying in international airspace near the Baltic states, but had not activated their transponders, an electronic system that helps maintain safe air traffic control.
"Russian jets regularly enter the airspace above the Baltics with transponders switched off, likely to test the response of NATO states," The Kyiv Independent reported, citing past instances of similaractivities by Russian aircraft.
That's a different scenario. That was over Syrian/Turkish airspace and Russia likely knew they don't have a leg to stand on there considering the close vicinity of the border and conflicting reports over the bomber's flight path. Not to mention that Turkey is a lot closer to Russia than the average NATO state.
I don't think it could escalate to a full war, but shooting down aircraft in intl. airspace is much more serious than a bomber that has strayed into your national airspace.
Interesting article. But is that seriously the best AI-generated image they could find for this story?
Nevermind, I guess it probably is a real photo, just from a really weird perspective, so it's like like the plane below it is merging into the plane in the foreground.
I see where you're coming from on it being AI generated, but I think it's actually the wings and canards from a second plane perfectly behind the front one. If you look closely, you can see the nose as well.
Loads of countries have been doing shit like this for years. Turkish planes do it to the Greeks, US/UK do it to Lebanon and Palestine, China does it to Taiwan, The US does it to China, India and Pakistan probably do it too.
Not that it's a good thing, but they're just testing the detection and interception of NATO. Russia uses standoff weapons which it can deploy from its own airspace, so they don't have much use flying beyond their borders unless it's to cause annoyance to neighbouring air patrols.