The Italian publication “Il Sole 24 Ore”, citing the news agency ANSA, which relies on its sources, stated that the Italian Air Force’s “Baltic Thunder III” air force group Eurofighter F-2000 fighters took off late Thursday afternoon from the Šiauliai aviation base, operating in “emergency mobilization mode”.
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The publication states that the response was to two Russian fighters that violated Lithuanian airspace.
“Considering that foreign media reported that yesterday two Russian military aircraft crossed Lithuanian airspace and fighters were scrambled from the Military Air Force Šiauliai Aviation Base.
We inform that the Russian aircraft did not enter Lithuanian airspace. They flew the route Kaliningrad – International airspace,” the military stated.
According to the Lithuanian military, this is a standard, routine procedure called A-scramble, i.e., when NATO air defense fighters are activated when aircraft are detected on radar monitors flying without transponders, with the aim to detect and visually identify the flying aircraft.
Escorting Russian aircraft in international airspace has become routine for NATO air policing mission fighters operating in Lithuania; aircraft take off at least once or several times a week for this purpose, and the Ministry of National Defence provides summaries of such incidents.
In the summary published this Monday, September 14, it was stated that from September 7 to 13, fighters performing NATO air defense functions in the Baltic countries took off once to patrol near the border in Poland and twice to identify and escort aircraft that violated flight rules:
- On September 8, NATO air defense mission fighters flew patrols in Poland.
- On September 11, NATO air defense mission fighters flew to identify two SU-35S aircraft, two MIG-31 aircraft, and one TU-134 aircraft. The aircraft flew through international airspace from the mainland of the Russian Federation (RF) to the RF Kaliningrad region. The aircraft flew without activated radar transponders, without flight plans, radio communication with the Regional Flight Control Center was maintained only by the TU-134.
- On September 13, NATO air defense fighters flew to identify and intercept an unidentified object. A flock of birds was identified.
The Italian fighters deployed in Šiauliai were scrambled only once last week, but this week, on the night from Monday to Tuesday, they shot down a drone that entered from Belarus for the first time.
It later turned out that the drone shot down in the Kaišiadorys district, near the Kruonis pumped-storage hydroelectric plant, was a Russian “Gerbera”, suspected to have been off course.
It had an explosive device that did not detonate when shot down – it was later neutralized by the police anti-terrorist operations unit “Aras”.
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