Polish fighters intercept Russian Il-20 over the Baltic, the tenth such intercept this year

An incident 40 km off Ustka

The defence minister announced the intercept on Thursday afternoon on social media, pointing directly to the danger posed by flights conducted without identification.

– Another incident over the Baltic involving a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft. 40 km north of Ustka our fighters intercepted a Russian aircraft which did not have its identification devices switched on and posed a threat to civilian aviation. There was no violation of Polish airspace – said Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.

The second intervention this week, the tenth this year

Thursday's event fits into a clear pattern. The previous intercept of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic took place on Monday, 31 August, around 30 km north of Łeba. Polish airspace was not violated on that occasion either. Earlier, Polish fighters intervened against Il-20 aircraft at the beginning of August, around 56 km north-west of Koszalin, in mid-July, when intercepts were reported three days in a row, and on 13 May. According to Poland's Armed Forces Operational Command, the number of intercepts of Russian aircraft along NATO's eastern flank has risen by more than 250 per cent.

What the Il-20 is and how an intercept works

The Il-20M, known under the NATO reporting name Coot-A, is an imagery and electronic reconnaissance aircraft built on the basis of the Il-18 airliner. Russian reconnaissance and combat aircraft regularly appear over the Baltic without filed flight plans and with their transponders switched off, which makes remote identification impossible and complicates the work of air traffic control. That is precisely why such flights pose a real danger to civilian aircraft using the same areas of airspace. According to experts, the Russians are in this way testing, among other things, the reactions of NATO states and their air defence systems.

Intercepting a foreign aircraft over international waters is a standard security procedure. It consists above all of the fighter pilots identifying the aircraft with optoelectronic systems and visual contact, attempting to establish communication, and escorting it out of the area of responsibility of Polish aviation. To this end the pilots may perform a range of manoeuvres, from closing in on the foreign aircraft to demonstrating their armament.