Fighter Jets Scrambled To Intercept Russian Aircraft in NATO First - Newsweek
Fighter jets from two NATO countries intercepted several Russian military aircraft on Thursday in a "first" for joint activity between Finland and Sweden, the nations' armed forces said.
Finnish and Swedish fighter jets were scrambled after a "detachment" of Russian aircraft was detected in international airspace over the Gulf of Finland, Helsinki said in a statement.
"This was the first joint operational identification mission [for] our air forces," according to the Swedish military.
Finland and Sweden are NATO's newest members, and ended decades of non-alignment by joining the alliance shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
NATO then upped its air policing missions across Eastern Europe, and frequently says it intercepts Russian military aircraft flying in international airspace near alliance member states.
While it is not unusual for military aircraft to skirt near to the airspace of other countries, Russia sending aircraft close to NATO's borders is generally seen as an intimidation tactic.
The alliance said last month its fighter jets were scrambled more than twice as often in July 2026 as during the same month last year. In the first half 2026 alone, NATO member Norway deployed fighter jets 62 times in response to Russian flights on NATO's northeastern flank, Newsweek reported in July.
The Finnish military said it scrambled F/A-18 Hornet aircraft on Thursday and an unspecified number of Swedish Gripen fighter jets also took to the skies.
NATO's Air Command (AIRCOM) said Turkish F-16s stationed in Estonia and Italian Eurofighter jets in Lithuania were also scrambled.
"This is what close cooperation looks like in practice," said Major General Jonas Wikman, the commander of Sweden's air force.
Russia's Defense Ministry has been contacted for comment via email.
The Gulf of Finland is part of the broader Baltic Sea, an area dominated by NATO. Russia is the only non-alliance member looking out onto the sea and its Kaliningrad exclave is home to the Kremlinβs Baltic fleet and a wealth of other military assets.
"The Baltic Sea has never been as vulnerable as it is now β but it has also never been better protected than it is right now," Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, said on Friday.
NATO launched an initiative dubbed "Baltic Sentry" in early 2025, saying the alliance needed to surge its protection in the sea to protect critical undersea infrastructure, following a spate of suspected sabotage incidents.
Officials have warned for years that Russia could be planning operations against NATO members, despite a clause in the alliance's founding treaty that says all members must treat an assault on one as an attack on all.
A large-scale military onslaught on NATO is extremely unlikely. But a small, probing land grab against the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, or Poland, is generally seen as the realistic worst-case scenario.
However, the possibility is real, unnamed U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal last month. Unnamed sources told the newspaper Washington now assesses Russia could launch a "limited" attack on NATO's eastern European edge as soon as this fall.
Weeks after this report emerged, CIA chief John Ratcliffe made a surprise visit to Moscow and reportedly warned top Kremlin officials not to up the long-running hybrid warfare campaign against NATO allies, particularly against the three Baltic states.
"Hybrid attacks" is a catch-all term for operations that stop short of open fighting, like cyberattacks, information campaigns, arson incidents or the targeting of vulnerable infrastructure, such as undersea cables. NATO says Russia has been waging a hybrid war with the alliance for years.
Russia has repeatedly denied planning to attack NATO territory, and dismissed the claims as "nonsense." Moscow also denied planning to invade Ukraine in the months leading up to the start of the all-out war in early 2022.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Tobias Meyjes and Tony Phillips.
