It seems that Denmark and Norway have been at the receiving end of these Russian tests.
Russia’s testing of NATO’s defenses has been going on for a long while, and so, in that sense, the recent mass “incursion” of its drones into Poland hardly came out of the blue. At the same time, it was clearly an escalation, probably designed to test both NATO’s political and military response.
And it has not been the end of the story.
First there was Romania.
Romania says a Russian drone has breached its airspace – the second Nato country to report such an incursion.
Romanian fighter jets were in the air monitoring a Russian attack in Ukraine on Saturday and were able to track the drone near Ukraine’s southern border, the defense ministry said in a statement…
The drone was identified as a Geran, the Russian name for an Iranian-designed Shahed 136, which is used by Russia both for attacks on Ukraine and surveillance. It was detected 20km (12.4 miles) south-west of the village of Chilia Veche, before disappearing from the radar. . . .
And then Estonia.
Three Russian military jets violated NATO member Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes on Friday in an “unprecedentedly brazen” incursion, its government said, the latest in a series of recent military actions by Russia that have rattled the alliance.
Twelve minutes may not not sound like a lot, and it was hardly the first intrusion of Russian jets over Estonian territory (there have been 40 since 2014). Normally, these have been much, much shorter and have basically involved taking a short cut to the Russian exclave at Kaliningrad.
This involved three MIG-21s, was the fourth incursion this year, went on for quite a bit longer, and happened at a time of heightened sensitivity. The MIGs were “escorted” away by Italian F-35s. Estonia, a member of NATO, will be spending 5.4 percent of GDP on defense next year, above and ahead of President Trump’s target, but it is a small country, and its air force has no fighter jets. Any active response to incursions of this nature must therefore involve a broader NATO response, raising the stakes considerably, as Moscow will know.
And now, it seems that Denmark and Norway have been at the receiving end of these Russian tests.
Denmark said drones that halted flights at its main airport on Monday were the most serious attack yet on its critical infrastructure and linked them to a series of suspected Russian drone incursions and other disruptions across Europe.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the drone activity seemed designed “to disrupt and create unrest”, though authorities refrained from naming suspects.
Sightings of two or three large drones near Copenhagen airport late on Monday halted all take-offs and landings for nearly four hours. Authorities in Norway also shut the airspace at Oslo airport for three hours after a drone was seen.
NATO countries on the receiving end of Russian incursions into their airspace went into the largest diplomatic gathering of the year [The UN General Assembly] hoping to shore up support against Moscow. They’re breathing a sigh of relief today after President Donald Trump told NATO to fire away at unauthorized Russian aircraft.
Trump appeared alongside Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and was asked whether he thinks NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace: “Yes I do,” he said
That was the right thing for Trump to say (we can, I think, assume that warning would be given before any such action). The question now, of course, is whether Moscow will feel that it is worth putting that resolve to the test. As it has shown in Ukraine, it regards the lives of its soldiers as dispensable. Even allowing for the cost of a jet, there is little reason to think it would feel any differently about a pilot.