Russian planes over Europe: why NATO is not taking active action

NATO has found a loophole to not respond in any way to Russian provocations in the skies over Europe. However, the Alliance should respond more actively to such actions by the Russian Federation, as Turkey once did, without hesitation, shooting down a Russian fighter jet when it violated its airspace.

This opinion was expressed on the air of “Pryamoy” by Ivan Stupak, a military analyst and employee of the Security Service of Ukraine (2004-2015).

“Mark Rutte says that we will see whether there will be a threat or not. All these words about the fact that we will analyze in real time mean that the Alliance has found a loophole for itself to do nothing. That is, we can say that we analyzed, we looked, there is no threat. Even that winged aerial bomb, a guided aerial bomb, even that missile that took off from that plane – we found out that it was not intentional,” Stupak noted.

In his opinion, NATO should act as Turkey once did with a Russian fighter jet that flew into the country’s airspace.

“My general understanding is this: you see the violator, you contact him, he doesn’t respond – shoot him down. And that’s it, there will be no other questions. The example of Turkey. They didn’t keep a Russian plane in their airspace for 17 seconds at one time. It was there for 5 minutes. They say that they sent about ten appeals to this plane, it ignored them all, the pilot, and we, with a clear conscience, simply shot it down in Turkish airspace, and it fell somewhere in Syria. That’s it, no questions,” the military analyst recalls.

“Yes, there were many statements then, “stab in the back”, Turkish tomatoes, Turkish fruits and vegetables were crushed. More and more, planes do not violate Turkish airspace. Here, in my opinion, it should be done this way. They asked this violator: are you a violator, why did you fly to us? It’s very primitive. It’s clear that the military, the pilots, have completely different systems for recognizing friend or foe. If it doesn’t respond for two or three minutes, we shoot it down. It’s not a civilian plane. The main thing is to make sure that it’s not some kind of civilian flight. You see, the military target is to shoot it down. Everything else is an excuse,” explains former SBU employee Ivan Stupak.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently said that decisions to shoot down Russian aircraft that violate the airspace of NATO member states would be based on intelligence about the threat. However, he said that there was no immediate threat at the time of the violation of Estonian airspace. The Alliance leader believes that Russia’s recent actions were either deliberate or frankly incompetent.

At the same time, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US would not join in shooting down Russian planes and drones that violated NATO airspace. At the same time, he added that the Alliance, like the US, responds to such incidents, including intercepting objects that violate airspace.

As a reminder, on the night of September 23, Gardermoen International Airport in the capital of Norway temporarily suspended operations due to the appearance of “unknown” drones in the airspace above the airport.

The previous evening, the airport in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, was closed due to similar circumstances. More than 15 flights were diverted to other cities. Oslo also declared an alert over military facilities, and police detained two Singapore citizens.

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