Fourteen of Nato’s 32 member countries operate, or have ordered, the US-made F-35 Lightning stealth fighter. All told there should be around 700 of the single-engine, radar-evading warplanes in Europe within a decade.
But not all of the Lightning-flying Nato air forces are the same. Finland, which ordered 64 F-35s in 2022 and joined the transatlantic alliance a year later, may be the most important European operator of the stealth fighter.
That’s because Finland shares an 800-mile border with Russia – by far the longest of any Nato member. And just across that border, in the Kola Peninsula and around the city of St. Petersburg, are many of Russia’s most capable missiles.
“The majority of Finnish territory is within the reach of Russian ground-based air-defense and surface-to-surface missile systems,” Major General Juha-Pekka Keränen, commander of the Finnish air force, wrote in a 2024 article.
Fourteen of Nato’s 32 member countries operate, or have ordered, the US-made F-35 Lightning stealth fighter. All told there should be around 700 of the single-engine, radar-evading warplanes in Europe within a decade.
But not all of the Lightning-flying Nato air forces are the same. Finland, which ordered 64 F-35s in 2022 and joined the transatlantic alliance a year later, may be the most important European operator of the stealth fighter.
That’s because Finland shares an 800-mile border with Russia – by far the longest of any Nato member. And just across that border, in the Kola Peninsula and around the city of St. Petersburg, are many of Russia’s most capable missiles.
“The majority of Finnish territory is within the reach of Russian ground-based air-defense and surface-to-surface missile systems,” Major General Juha-Pekka Keränen, commander of the Finnish air force, wrote in a 2024 article.