German, Swedish fighter jets track Russian reconnaissance plane flying over Baltic Sea

BERLIN (AP) — Air drive fighter jets from Germany and Sweden had been scrambled Sunday to intercept and track a Russian surveillance plane that was flying unidentified over the Baltic Sea, army officers said.

Two Swedish Gripen jets and two German Eurofighter jets deployed in worldwide airspace to monitor and {photograph} the Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane. It had been flying without offering a flight path or radio contact that might signal its presence, Swedish and German air drive officers said.

The monitoring, which ended without incident, got here as NATO and European Union member nations have been on heightened alert for Russian army and reconnaissance actions in and around their airspace.

On Friday, three Russian fighter plane entered Estonia’s airspace without permission and stayed there for 12 minutes, the Estonian Foreign Ministry said. That occurred just over a week after NATO planes downed Russian drones over Poland and heightened fears that the conflict in Ukraine might spill over.

“Today, (Swedish) JAS 39 Gripens and (German) Eurofighters were scrambled over the South Baltic Sea, identifying and monitoring a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace,” the Swedish air drive said on its X account.

The German Luftwaffe said its jets had initially adopted the Russian plane before handing off monitoring to the fighters from NATO ally Sweden, and then returning to Rostock-Laage airfield in northern Germany.