The German air force said on Saturday it intercepted an IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea. The plane flew without a transponder.
The Air Force announced on Platform X that it had taken off on a ‘protective flight’ to intercept a Russian military aircraft over the Baltic Sea. Eurofighters were in use.
As part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, Germany monitors the airspace over the Baltic states, which do not have their own fighter jets.
There have already been several incidents over the Baltic Sea
Since the Russian war of aggression, incidents have occurred repeatedly in the Baltic Sea. A very similar case to the current one occurred almost a year ago, in April 2023: German fighter jets from the German and British air forces intercepted three Russian reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace above the Baltic Sea. They flew “again without a transponder signal”, after which Eurofighters were deployed.
According to Russia, a German military aircraft approached Russian airspace in mid-January 2023, at which point a fighter jet took off to “escort” a German Lockheed P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft.
On January 30, a Russian reconnaissance aircraft “Ilyushin 20” flying without a recognition signal was spotted over the Baltic Sea and intercepted. The aircraft was “identified and briefly escorted before returning east,” the Luftwaffe explained on X.
Source: Krone
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