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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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Germany has scrambled fighter jets to intercept a Russian reconnaissance plane in the latest air incident between a NATO member and Moscow's air force.
The German Air Force said that it responded to the detection of an Iluyushin Il-20 over international waters between the island of Rügen and Denmark's Bornholm.
Berlin sent two Eurofighters from the Rostock-Laage airfield to "establish visual contact" over the Baltic Sea with the Russian plane, whose transponder was switched off and had no flight plan.
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German media reported that the Il-20 is often used for radio reconnaissance and gathering intelligence on NATO countries. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry and the alliance for comment.
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This latest incident adds to the growing list of Russian activities near sensitive European sites amid reports that Russian spy planes are intercepted by German jets around every three weeks.
In late September, six other Russian aircraft were intercepted by NATO jets in just two days, while German and Swedish fighters were scrambled in August to intercept another Il-20 plane.
There have also been Russian drone flights over sensitive areas in Germany such as in August when the devices flew over a shut-down nuclear power plant in Schleswig-Holstein, which led German prosecutors to launch a sabotage probe.
As previously reported by Newsweek, NATO said its air policing units had conducted about 200 interceptions of Russian aircraft over the Baltic in 2023 and around 190 in the first nine months of this year.
Russia's defense ministry has previously that the country's pilots "regularly fly over the international waters of the Arctic, the North Atlantic, the Black and Baltic Seas, and the Pacific Ocean" and the flights are over international airspace.
However since the accession to the alliance of Finland and Sweden, the Baltic Sea has been dubbed a "NATO lake," making it a focus for Russian aircraft operations—particularly since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russian aircraft have also flown in international airspace close to the U.S., with North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) releasing footage of a Russian Sukhoi Su-35 closely buzzing a U.S. F-16 fighter jet on September 23 in a move it described as "unsafe" and "unprofessional."
NORAD, which last month also reported two Russian Ilyushin Il-38 patrol aircraft and two Russian Tupolev Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft close to Alaska has said Russia's activity is "not seen as a threat" but they come amid concerns about miscalculation.
Update 10/17/24, 5 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.
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