By Jaime Ortega.
Amid political tensions between Russia and the West, the Norwegian Air Force has detected two Russian planes flying over their coast on late October. It was this week when pictures were made public, through newspaper VG ‘.
The pictures show a sophisticated Sukhoi Su-34, an advanced attack aircraft and fighter-bomber Russian tandem, flying over the coast of Finnmark. The dubbed ‘Fullback’, was the first time a ship of this type was seen near Norway “but had already been identified by NATO flying before on other member countries” and demonstrates the military might that Russia is currently deploying .
The Norwegian Air Force were already on alert since last Octoberm when NATO Tupolev.95 reported that four and four fuel tankers had taken off from the Kola Peninsula to fly to the Norwegian Sea in international airspace. The Russian aircraft returned through the UK.
In turn, these flights coincided with intense activity of Russia in the Baltic. So earlier this week, the European Leadership Network, a “think tank based in London, published a report showing how the Russian armed forces are now acting more aggressively than in times past.
One hundred raids
The report lists 40 incidents in the past eight months, including violations of national airspace with close encounters at sea as air collision averted at the last moment. Other violation conducted by Russia followed as well on other serious events in different parts of the globe. Until the end of October the member countries of NATO have intercepted Russian aircraft on 100 occasions in their countries, triple the previous year, according to the Alliance.
Of all the incidents, three of which have been extremely risky, according to that think tank. So, last March 3 occurred 50 miles south of the Swedish city of Malmö on a close encounter between an SAS airliner operating the Copenhagen-Rome route with a Russian reconnaissance aircraft that had not relayed their position. The collision was not due to good weather conditions and the skill of the pilots, according to the report.
On September 5, an agent of the security services in Estonia, Kohver Eston, was kidnapped by Russian agents in an Estonian border post, therefore, NATO territory. He was taken to Moscow where he was accused of espionage. The incident happened just after President Obama’s tour of the Baltic countries.
The latest incident, which occurred in late October, was the detection of a submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, and therefore in Swedish territorial waters. Then, the supreme commander, General Sverker Göranson stressed that Sweden was ready to use military force to bring the ship to the surface if necessary. However, the search operation ended October 24.
