Finland and Sweden jointly scramble jets to intercept Russian aircraft over Gulf of Finland

Finnish and Swedish fighter jets were launched on Sept. 24 to intercept a formation of Russian military aircraft detected in international airspace over the Gulf of Finland, the Swedish Armed Forces said. The Russian group included a Tu-134 transport, a high-altitude MiG-31 interceptor and Su-30 multirole fighters.

"This is what close cooperation looks like in practice," Maj. Gen. Jonas Wikman, commander of the Swedish Air Force, said in a statement after the joint operation. "Built over years on trust and strong personal relationships, we can now operate seamlessly together — as air forces, as nations and as Allies."

The sortie follows a series of recent airspace violations by Russian forces near NATO’s eastern flank, including drone incursions into Poland, a helicopter crossing from Kaliningrad into Poland, and Russian jets intercepted over Estonia on Sept. 18. Estonia’s defence minister warned that Russia could consider using force against the Baltic state within a year, while the Finnish and Swedish governments highlighted the growing integration of their air defenses since both countries joined NATO in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

NATO has reiterated that its activities on the eastern front are defensive and that any attack on a member would trigger a collective response. European intelligence services have noted a low but rising risk of limited Russian attacks on NATO members, while assessing a full-scale invasion as unlikely but no longer impossible.