Flying Over Swedish Skies, 4 Russian Fighter Intercepted by Italian Eurofighter Typhoon Fighter

The 4 Russian Fighter Intercepted by Italian Eurofighter Typhoon Fighter

International Military - Italian fighter jets immediately flew in response to four Russian warplanes that entered European airspace on Wednesday local time. This was disclosed by the Italian air force. The Twitter page of the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare) shared an image of two Italian aircraft.

"#Scramble, just a direct takeoff for the Italian Eurofighter Typhone (fighter jet) involved in Air Policing activities in Poland to intercept 4 Russian warplanes that had affected Polish and Swedish airspace before being forced to re-enter Kaliningrad airspace," the page reads. on Twitter as quoted from Newsweek, Thursday (6/10/2022).

#Scramble, nuovo decollo immediato per gli #Eurofighter italiani impegnati in attività di Air Policing in Polonia per intercettare 4 caccia russi che avevano interessato gli spazi aerei polacco e svedese prima di essere costretti a rientrare nello spazio aereo di Kaliningrad pic.twitter.com/xY6b3YA4YI

— Aeronautica Militare (@ItalianAirForce) October 5, 2022

The page tweeted a follow-up image showing another Italian plane taking off. It also clarified that the Russian aircraft first entered Polish airspace and then Swedish airspace.

The incident comes amid high levels of tension between Russia and the West and Ukraine, especially after Kiev's successful counter-offensive campaign brought significant military success. The situation has become even more tense after Russian President Vladimir Putin recently threatened to use nuclear weapons if his country had to defend itself against attack.

Matthias Eichenlaub, a NATO press officer, told Newsweek that Italy has jets assigned to the alliance's air policing mission in the Baltic region. He also said that NATO aircraft in the region regularly intercept Russian military aircraft that do not follow international air safety rules.

Last Friday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed support for Ukraine in its efforts to take back territory held by Russian forces. "Ukraine of course has the right to reclaim the territory of Ukraine now occupied by Russian troops. That's the reason why we support them. So that they can defend themselves but also so that they can continue to liberate territory. And as I said, illegal annexation or attempted annexation Ukrainian territory doesn't change that. It doesn't change the nature of this conflict."

Stoltenberg also stressed that NATO would not fall victim to "nuclear blackmail" and fear of Russian retaliation. "Then we accepted that by threatening to use nuclear weapons, authoritarian powers like Russia can achieve what they want," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently spoke about the military success his troops have achieved against Russia. "The Ukrainian army is advancing in a fairly fast and strong manner in the south of the country in the context of current defense operations," he said in a speech last Tuesday. "This week alone, since Russia's pseudo-referendum, dozens of population centers have been liberated. All of them are in the Kherson, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions," he added.

Earlier this week, Ukraine said Russia lost 44 tanks and 27 armored personnel carriers in one day. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces provided the latest Russian loss estimates on Tuesday morning on its Facebook page. The post estimated that since the start of the war, Russia had lost about 60,800 personnel, with an additional 370 losses as of Monday. It also said that 2,424 tanks had been destroyed since the war began February 24 and 44 tanks were destroyed on Monday.

Ukrainian forces have also destroyed 5,018 armored personnel vehicles, and another 27 were destroyed as of Monday. Throughout the war, Russia rarely released updates on its losses, and the figures released were much lower than Ukraine's estimates.