Russian fighters and bombers with supersonic missiles appeared over the Baltic

“Yesterday, together with Finland and Sweden, we intercepted Russian planes armed with supersonic missiles over the Baltic Sea,” said Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans on the social network X. The minister said that the incident happened on Tuesday, but did not give any other details about the action.

Photos released by the Swedish military a day earlier showed two Sukhoi Su-27 fighters accompanying two Russian Tupolev Tu-22M bombers that appeared to be armed with cruise missiles. These could have been training weapons. Dutch F-35s were deployed together with Finnish F/A-18 Hornets and Swedish gripens.

“Protecting our security requires constant preparedness,” Brekelmans said. Four Dutch F-35 aircraft are currently stationed at Ämari Air Base in Estonia to help monitor NATO’s eastern flank. The machines, pilots and support staff have been there since December 1 this year.

The latest incident over the Baltic Sea happened a day after Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Brekelmans visited the Estonian capital Tallinn and Schoof visited the Dutch contingent working at the base in Ämari.

“Estonians know better than anyone else that this threat is not only something from the past, but unfortunately also from the present and the future. The rest of Europe has now also realized this. So we have to act accordingly,” Schoof wrote on Instagram after the visit earlier this week.

In the first half of this month, F-35 fighters intercepted three Russian aircraft over the Baltic. They escorted them from an appropriate distance above international waters to the borders of NATO’s area of ​​responsibility.

The “meeting” with four Russian military aircraft was also monitored on Wednesday by the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). According to him, the Russian machines were operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). But they broke off the approach, remained in international airspace and did not enter the airspace of the United States or Canada.

In this context, the command stated that it uses a complex defense network of satellites, ground and air radars and fighter planes to detect and track aircraft. “NORAD has a number of options for the defense of North America,” the statement said.