
The Finnish Air Force said on Friday that Swedish and Finnish fighter jets had taken to the air to identify Russian fighter jets flying over the Gulf of Finland.
The air force said that Rapid Response Alert aircraft from the two Nordic countries had taken to the air on Thursday.
They had identified a Russian detachment consisting of a Tu-134 transport plane, MiG-31 fighter jets and Su-30 fighter jets “in international airspace over the Gulf of Finland.”
According to the military, this was the "first joint operational identification mission" for the two air forces.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson commented on Operation X, saying that "the Baltic Sea has never been as vulnerable as it is now, but it has also never been more protected than it is now."
Tensions over the Baltic Sea have risen sharply in recent years, and Nordic jets regularly take to the air to intercept Russian aircraft.
After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland abandoned decades of military non-commitment and joined NATO.
A Russian Air Force MiG-31 fighter jet takes off at an air base during military exercises in the Tver region, February 14, 2022
The incident occurred on the same day that the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) said the risk of Russian military action against NATO countries was increasing and a full invasion was "highly unlikely," but possible.
"There is a low but increasing risk that Russia will launch a limited military attack against one or more NATO countries bordering Russia," Thomas Ahrenkiel, head of the DDIS, said at a press conference in which he presented an updated assessment of the threat from Russia.
He said the agency still considered it "highly unlikely that Russia would see any interest in invading a NATO country, but we cannot rule out the possibility."
In its DDIS assessment, the agency said Russia is likely to carry out more so-called "hybrid attacks" against targets in the West.
He noted that in the past such attacks "were primarily aimed at creating fear and weakening public support for aid to Ukraine."
But they had now begun to include actions aimed at stopping support from reaching Ukraine, such as sabotage against defense companies or rail transports carrying military equipment, the agency said.
DDIS said it believed Russia would intensify such attacks, which could include "destructive cyberattacks that undermine critical societal functions."