ÄMARI AIR BASE, Estonia—Just minutes after NATO radars detected three Russian MiG-31 aircraft with transponders turned off heading toward the Estonian border on Friday, alarms sounded at this wooded air base about 40 minutes outside Tallinn. Italian airmen scrambled to their F-35s to intercept the Russian jets, taking over for Finnish aircraft that were already aloft. Twelve minutes later, the Italians escorted the MiGs out of Estonian airspace toward Kaliningrad.
Col. Gaetano Farina, commander of Italy’s Air 32nd Wing, told reporters Wednesday the incident was more significant than his unit’s similar interception in August. The most recent incursion occurred over land, with the Russians appearing to head toward Tallinn, intentions unknown. The MiGs weren’t carrying bombs—a critical factor in NATO forces’ decision not to fire—but they were armed with air-to-air missiles.
Even so, Farina described the scene as orderly. “There is training that we do almost every day,” he said, calling the response “very professional.” The Russian pilots, too, seemed unperturbed and even waved at the Italians from their cockpits, he said.
The violation raised alarm well beyond the Baltics. Estonia’s foreign minister, speaking at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, called the move “outrageous.” Top officials from Poland and the Czech Republic, and even U.S. President Donald Trump, said NATO militaries should shoot down Russian aircraft that violate airspace. Estonia’s defense minister has indicated a willingness to do so, depending on the threat.
Following an emergency Article 4 consultation on Tuesday, the Italian government agreed to extend the deployment of its SAMP/T anti-aircraft battery to next spring, when the Italians are scheduled to leave the air base. The mobile system’s ground radar can spot enemy aircraft more than 200 nautical miles away, and engage them up to 93 miles away with two mobile missile launchers carrying four Aster 30 missiles apiece.
In addition, the Italians, who have been in the country since August, brought a Conformal Airborne Early Warning jet, or CAEW, an advanced airborne early-warning aircraft that performs a role similar to the Boeing E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System. Unlike the 153-foot Sentry, with its large protruding radar dish, the CAEW has its ELTA radar embedded (conformed, as it were) within a smaller, more inconspicuous Gulfstream E-550A.
The jet will stay in Estonia with the Italians, and wherever it goes after that, it will likely continue surveilling NATO’s eastern flank as part of the Enhanced Vigilance Activity mission, which was launched after Russia’s expanded invasion of Crimea in 2022. But those aircraft are just part of the expanded network of sensors and radars that NATO has sent to the region, which enabled the alliance to identify, analyze, and track the Russian jets almost as soon as they took off.
Later this week, NATO commanders will meet in Riga, Latvia, where they are expected to discuss additional enhancements to Baltic security under the Eastern Sentry mission, announced earlier in September in response to increased Russian incursions into NATO airspace.
Farina and other NATO officials at Ämari said they do not know why Russia is escalating violations, risking pilots’ lives and potentially provoking conflict with NATO.
But Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told reporters earlier this week the incidents likely do not signal an imminent invasion. Instead, he urged observers to view them alongside Russia’s other actions, such as cyberattacks and information campaigns across Europe.
“My reading is that Russia is deliberately pushing all of us NATO allies to deal with … air incidents, airspace violations, drone incidents, and then we have cyberattacks,” he said.
In response, Estonia will continue raising its defense budgets, already among the largest in NATO at 5% of GDP. Pevkur said the country has a four-year plan to reach 5.9%, and will also continue to send financial aid to Ukraine.
“Our response to that is that we keep our heads calm,” he said.
