On Friday, French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu reported an escalation by Russian forces that occurred in the Baltic Sea during a NATO mission aimed at preventing sabotage and the rupture of undersea cables.
“On Wednesday night, the French maritime patrol aircraft Atlantique 2 became the target of Russian threats,” he said on the X Platform.
The plane, which took off from Brittany, was patrolling the Baltic Sea as part of a NATO operation and remained in international airspace at all times.
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The plane was then “illuminated by the fire control radar of the S400 ground/air defense system,” as Lecorne stated. As the German daily Der Spiegel points out, this data is being collected for the use of anti-aircraft missiles.
Incident in the Baltic Sea. Russian S-400 system detects French plane
The French military said the Atlantique 2 had been hit by “sabotage attempts” and “fire guidance radar irradiation.” In military parlance, the term “irradiation” refers to the use of radar to aim at a target.
“This aggressive behavior by Russia is unacceptable,” Lecorne said. At the same time, he vowed that the French military “will continue to act to protect freedom of navigation in international air and maritime space.”
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Last year, Lecorne reported that the Russians were threatening French reconnaissance planes over the Black Sea.
“The pilot’s professional conduct prevented the situation from escalating.”
Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the plane “flew for almost five hours off the coast of Sweden and the Baltic states, inspecting around 200 mostly civilian vessels but finding no suspicious vessels.” .
“Shooting radar at our aircraft in international waters is an aggressive act,” said Colonel Guillaume Vernet, a spokesman for the French military general staff. He noted that Russia had reacted in this way to actions taken by North Atlantic Alliance forces in the region.
Mr Boernet stressed that any possible escalation as a result of this incident was prevented by the professional conduct of the aircraft crew.
See: Groundbreaking Security Announcements. NATO Chief: Launching the Baltic Sea Guard
– This is an act of war that could be interpreted as an open and direct attack on French aircraft – aviation and defense expert Xavier Teitelman commented on the Tf1.
US General Christopher Cavoli, commander of NATO forces in Europe, said at a press conference in Brussels that the incident was “extremely serious” but common and “reaches far beyond Europe’s borders.” emphasized.
Violation of Romanian airspace. F-16 was picked up
The incident also occurred in Romania’s airspace, which was violated during a nighttime Russian attack on Ukraine.
On Friday, the local Ministry of Defense announced in a statement cited by the Romanian website Hot News that two Romanian Air Force F-16 fighter jets took off on Friday. 1:35 (35 minutes past midnight in Poland, editor) Monitoring the situation in the sky from the 86th Air Force Base in Borce. The machine returned to base two hours later.
The ministry reported that “signs of a possible drone attack” were found near the village of Praul, 30 kilometers north of the city of Tulcea, on the border with Ukraine. The scene has been secured and an investigation is underway.
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On the night of Thursday and Friday, Russians used attack drones to attack port infrastructure in Izmail, Odessa region, according to the website of the Ukrainska Pravda news agency.
Ukrainian authorities reported no casualties, but some buildings were damaged. The village of Praul is approximately 300 meters from the Izmaile building.
As Reuters recalled, over the past year and a half there have been regular violations of Romania’s airspace, especially during Russian attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure along the Danube.
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