Swedish and Finnish fighter jets intercept Russian aircraft over the Gulf of Finland

Swedish and Finnish fighter planes were urgently dispatched on Thursday and identified Russian aircraft flying over the Gulf of Finland, the Finnish Air Force announced on Friday.

The early warning mission (QRA) of the two Nordic countries identified on this occasion a Russian detachment composed of a Tu-134 transport plane, MiG-31 fighters and Su-30 fighters “in international airspace above the Gulf of Finland”, specified the Finnish forces.

According to the Finnish Air Force, this was the first joint operational "identification mission" for both air forces. “The Baltic Sea has never been as vulnerable as today - but it has also never been as well protected as at the moment,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson wrote on X, commenting on the operation. Tensions around the Baltic Sea have increased sharply in recent years, and Nordic fighter planes are regularly dispatched to intercept Russian aircraft.

The end of a strategy of non-alignment

On September 2, the Finnish authorities announced that they were investigating a “possible territorial violation”, after the discovery of a drone found stranded on the shore of an island in the Porvoo archipelago, in the Gulf of Finland. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland both abandoned decades of military non-alignment and joined NATO.