Russian MiG-31 fighter pilots waved to their Italian counterparts who scrambled to intercept them in Estonian airspace last week as part of NATO’s air-defense mission.
The Italian F-35 pilots performed what is known as a “wing rock” as they flew alongside the Russian MiGs, a standard maneuver in air operations to let targeted planes know they’ve been intercepted.
Whether the wave was a greeting or a taunt is unclear. But the Russians responded according to protocol with a wing rock of their own, acknowledging the intercept.
Why We Wrote This
Repeated incursions of drones and jets into European airspace this month have reopened debate about how well NATO efforts to deter Moscow are working, and how NATO should respond to what many regard as Russian baiting.
The three MiG-31 jets violated Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes, a long time in military terms, and repeatedly ignored requests for communication.
Russia appears to be making a habit lately of sending its assets into NATO-protected airspace. This has included, in September alone, flying into the skies above Poland, Romania, and possibly Denmark, where a spate of mysterious drone incursions shut down airports on Wednesday.
These latest episodes have reopened debate about how well NATO efforts to deter Moscow from military aggression are working – and how the alliance should respond to what many regard as brazen baiting by Russia.
Last week’s incident in Estonia also prompted a chorus of calls from top European officials to shoot down Russian planes the next time they venture into NATO airspace.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in, saying he supported the idea. Behind the scenes, ahead of a meeting on Friday in Riga, Latvia, to convene NATO’s highest military authority, European officials have reportedly warned the Kremlin that NATO is ready to do just that.
“What we will always do is to make sure that we react in a proportionate way,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday at a press briefing. The weapons on the Russian MiGs – air-to-air missiles rather than bombs – did not pose an “immediate threat,” he added. But “you can be assured that we will do what is necessary to defend our cities, our people.”
President Trump later walked back his comments on shooting down Russian jets, at least a bit, saying whether the U.S. would directly support a NATO country taking such action would depend “on the circumstances.”
What’s clear, analysts say, is that the continued provocation raises the possibility – and stakes – of miscalculation. “Our response to that,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur noted on Monday, “is that we keep our heads calm.”
Ignoring calls: mistake or provocation?
When the siren sounded to scramble fighter jets last week at Ämari Air Base, a former Soviet military installation tucked in the woods about an hour from the Estonian capital of Tallinn, Italian pilots here started running.
The Russian planes had turned off their transponders and appeared to be ignoring repeated calls from air traffic control.
It was the seventh time since his forces arrived in August that pilots have had to scramble to address potential Russian threats, according to Air Force Col. Gaetano Farina, who commands the Italian contingent of F-35s stationed here as part of NATO’s Baltic Eagle III air-policing mission.
The last time a Russian foray into the country lasted as long was in 2003, just before Estonia joined NATO, Estonian officials pointed out.
Reuters, BBC, CBS News, The Associated Press, Institute for the Study of War, LiveUAMap
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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Some have speculated that the pilots made a mistake. “I cannot say, maybe it can happen with an old jet,” says Colonel Farina, who used to command Italy’s equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels.
Allowing for such mistakes, a form of de-escalation, tends to be the default position of professional soldiers well-acquainted with the consequences of war. And Colonel Farina said the Italian pilots who scrambled to intercept the Russian aircraft were relaxed upon their return.
Moving to high alert
Still, repeated – and suspected Kremlin-directed – incursions into NATO countries have put Europe on high alert. After 19 drones invaded Polish airspace on Sept. 12, Warsaw invoked NATO’s Article 4, a call for consultations when member states perceive a threat to their security. Estonia followed suit last week, and Denmark has reportedly considered invoking it as well. Following these meetings, NATO announced it was immediately launching a new mission called Eastern Sentry.
The plan is to beef up defenses along the eastern flank of the alliance. To do that, member countries are pooling their high-tech assets and placing them at the disposal of NATO’s supreme allied commander, U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich.
NATO member states, including France, Germany, and Britain, are offering up everything from fighter jets to advanced sensors to special operations forces. When asked what the United States had contributed, General Grynkewich joked that he was it. “I’m right here, and I’m involved.”
Eastern Sentry bolsters a plan that was put in place by NATO earlier this year after a spate of suspected undersea sabotage operations by Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. Known as Baltic Sentry, it involves stepped-up sea patrols and the use of naval drones to enhance surveillance of critical ocean-bed infrastructure.
European officials have announced plans for a “drone wall” – to be finalized this week – that would stretch from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It would involve a network of radars, sensors, and cameras to help determine whether detected drones should, say, have their signals jammed or be taken down with friendly drones – some equipped with weapons, others with less expensive nets.
In the meantime, NATO officials offered public reassurances that the alliance’s defenses have been doing “exactly what they are designed to do,” as Mr. Rutte put it on Tuesday.
Reactions and responses
On this matter, however, there has been pushback. Mr. Rutte fielded questions, for example, about whether the repeated invocations of Article 4, meant as a stark warning to adversaries, dilute the impact of the message.
Invoking Article 4 is “a big thing to do,” says Jacob Parakilas, who leads research in defense and security at RAND Europe. It’s a little less impactful, he adds, the more often it’s done.
European officials, such as Czech President Petr Pavel, a retired general and former chair of NATO’s Military Committee, argue that the alliance must respond more decisively to Russian provocations.
If NATO forces were to shoot down the next fighter jet that comes into a member country’s airspace, he says, “Russia will realize very quickly that they have made a mistake and crossed acceptable boundaries.”
In the hours after the MiGs flew over Estonia, Lithuania’s defense minister posted on X that “Turkey set an example” of how to respond to such incursions when it shot down a Russian Su-24 strike fighter that violated its airspace in 2015 – an incursion that lasted approximately 17 seconds.
Turkey’s defensive strike didn’t provoke a strong Russian reaction. “The Russians were obviously upset and complained and criticized Turkey. But there was no immediate military blowback,” Dr. Parakilas says. “So, I think there’s a sense that when you have an aircraft that’s unambiguously in enemy airspace, that’s a legitimate target.”
There were several such incidents of intruding aircraft being shot down during the Cold War, including American reconnaissance planes in the 1950s and 1960s that “either intentionally or unintentionally crossed into Soviet airspace,” Dr. Parakilas notes. “None of those produced a war.”
Still, there’s a big difference between shooting down unmanned drones and targeting piloted aircraft, he says, adding that the “really difficult” challenge is setting clear rules of engagement that take the decision about how to engage – such as when and whether to fire on a crewed aircraft – out of the hands of what he describes as “relatively low-level troops.’’
In the Estonia case, the Italian pilots relayed what they saw to NATO command and control, which ultimately decided to escort the Russian planes out of Estonian airspace.
That protocol can change if the life of a NATO pilot is threatened, in which case the pilot might fire in self-defense, says Colonel Farina, while standing in the shadow of a high-tech aircraft covered with radars. The plane is part of a growing network of sensors to track Russian aircraft that are almost certainly probing NATO’s defenses, officials here say.
As the colonel spoke, the sound of gunfire from Estonian troops practicing on the range echoed in the distance.
Intelligence suggests that, despite the Kremlin’s bluster, the Russian armed forces are well aware that they are outmatched against NATO, according to Mr. Pevkur, the Estonian defense minister.
“And this calculation that they have no chance,” he adds, “is the calculation we want them to have.”
