NATO intercepts

Russian jets over

Baltic Sea as
Sweden
continues search
for a suspected
damaged
submarine

MATTI HUUHTANEN, AP

NEWS CORP AUSTRALIA NETWORK

OCTOBER 22, 2014 4:49PM

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Tensions high in the Baltic ... a file photo of Russian Army jet fighters. Picture: AP
Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service

NATO scrambled fighter jets twice in two days to

intercept Russian military aircraft over the Baltic Sea,

amid reports that Russian military activity in the region

is increasing.
Lt. Col. Robert Gericke said the Russian aircraft were flying in
international airspace and had not violated the territory of alliance
members.
RELATED: Sweden searches for suspected damaged submarine
EARLIER: Dutch and British jets intercept Russian fighters
Two Canadian F-18 Hornet jets were scrambled from the Siauliai Air
Base in Lithuania on Monday to intercept a Russian Ilyushin-20
surveillance aircraft, which they shadowed for some 15 minutes, NATO
said.
Once identification was successful, the intercept mission was
completed and the two Hornets returned to their base, a NATO
statement said.
Earlier, the Latvian military tweeted that NATO F-16 jets were
dispatched on Tuesday to intercept a Russian Ilyushin-20 surveillance
aircraft over the Baltic Sea. Gericke confirmed that NATO jets had also
intercepted a Russian aircraft that day, but could not immediately
provide more details.
NATO, which has 16 fighter jets in the region monitoring Baltic
airspace, said it regularly launches jets to identify unknown or
potentially hostile aircraft in the proximity of national airspace.

Search continues ... The Swedish minesweeper HMS Kullen in Namdo Bay on the
fifth day of searching for a suspected foreign vessel in the Stockholm
archipelago. Picture: AP Photo/Fredrik Sandberg

EARLIER: Was a Chinese jet playing Top Gun games?

There were two similar incidents in the region on October 7 and
September 11, but on neither occasion did the Russian aircraft
constitute a threat to NATO forces, the alliance said.

In the past five days, the Swedish Navy has been combing the
Stockholm archipelago for signs of a foreign submarine that officials
suspect entered its territorial waters illegally.
Military officials havent blamed any country for the suspected
intrusion, though most Swedish defence analysts say Russia would be
a likely culprit.
Suspicions were raised when a commercial tanker operated by Russia
was noticed circling in a narrow area off Swedish waters.
Swedish news website SvD Nyheter claimed the search is aimed at
locating a possible Russian submarine believed to have sent a distress
call on a Russian emergency frequency.
The newspaper website cited credible sources saying the
transmission was made in plain language, followed by a second
encrypted transmission on Friday.
Sweden built up an anti-submarine force after a Soviet sub with
nuclear weapons ran aground off its southern shores in 1981 but
started dismantling it as part of deep cuts in defence spending after
the Cold War ended.

Capabilities stretched ... The Swedish corvette HMS Visby navigates Mysingen
Bay as part of the search for the suspected foreign vessel. Picture: AP Photo/TT
News Agency, Fredrik Sandberg

Experts questioned whether Sweden has the tools to find a submarine

hiding among the thousands of islands and reefs that make up the
Stockholm archipelago.
The odds of us locating and taking action against a foreign
underwater vessel is, due to the reduction of our capabilities and the

complex environment in the littorals of the Baltic Sea, relatively small,

said retired navy Commander Christian Allerman, a task group chief in
Swedens anti-submarine warfare force in the 1990s.
The Finnish military says that Russian military aircraft have violated the
small Nordic countrys airspace five times this year, and the
Environment Institute said Russian military ships had twice intercepted
one of its research vessels in international waters.
On September 5 an Estonian security service officer was detained on
the Russian border Estonia and Russia disagree on which side of it
and is still in custody in Moscow.
Originally published as NATO intercepts Russian jets