Talking to a local media outlet, a Swedish Armed Forces officer said that Russian bombers practiced bombing runs to Sweden, Baltics states and Poland last week.
Nothing new then. Close encounters occur quite often and some of them have much media attention, as happened in March, April, and June.
The latest episode occurred in the morning of Oct. 28, when three escort planes and two Russian bombers flew in direction of the Swedish territory. The “package” was detected on the radar over the Gulf of Finland and for one hour they seemingly carried out attack runs against Poland, the Baltics – and the southern tip of Öland in Sweden.
“I think the purpose was to practice various types of attacks as well as highlight the Russian presence in the southern Baltic,” Anders Persson, acting flight tactical commander on the Swedish Armed Forces said in an interview with SVT.se.
“We are now seeing an increased activity of Russian strategic bombers in the area. Of course we have to follow developments and see what they’re going and what they are doing,” Persson said.
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Two Gripen fighter jet were scrambled to keep a close eye on the Russian planes.
Even though Sweden is somehow used to such activity in the Baltic Sea area, the aggressive posture of the Russians makes the drills a bit annoying for the Swedish.
“The difference is that when we practice, we do it together with a nation, we do not practice on any target in any country without the country being involved in the exercise. The Russian behavior is far more aggressive in their exercises,” Anders Persson, comments.
Image credit: Alex Beltyukov
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