Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets deployed in Poland were scrambled twice in three days to intercept Russian aircraft operating near NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defence.
On Thursday, 5 June 2025, two RAF Typhoon FGR4 aircraft were launched from the 22nd Tactical Air Base in Malbork, Poland, after NATO air command detected an unidentified aircraft departing from Kaliningrad airspace.
The sortie was conducted under Operation CHESSMAN, the UK’s contribution to NATO’s Enhanced Air Policing (eAP) mission.
The aircraft were tasked with identifying and shadowing an An-30, a Soviet-era aerial photography aircraft known by its NATO reporting name CLANK. Once visual identification was confirmed, the Typhoons conducted a standard shadowing procedure to ensure the safety of surrounding air traffic.
Following the initial interception, NATO retasked the pair to identify a second aircraft operating in the same area. This second contact was confirmed as an Ilyushin Il-20M, designated COOT A by NATO. The Il-20M is a long-serving Russian surveillance aircraft used for communications and electronic intelligence. It was similarly shadowed before the Typhoons were cleared to return to base.
The aircrew involved were from No. II (Army Co-operation) Squadron, operating under 140 Expeditionary Air Wing, which is currently responsible for conducting Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) duties in the region.
An RAF spokesperson explained the legal and operational basis for the intercepts: “NATO instructed us to scramble, intercept and identify an unknown aircraft transiting close to NATO airspace. It was not communicating, SQUAWKing, nor did it file a flight plan. All aircraft must do at least two of the three in accordance with international law. Neither aircraft were complying with international law, therefore NATO can legally scramble aircraft to intercept.”
They added: “Once intercepted and identified, we shadowed the aircraft to protect civilian air traffic in the immediate area. This is common practice—as without SQUAWKing or communicating, civilian aircraft and air traffic controllers cannot be confident in the non-communicating aircraft’s movements.”
The incident marks the second scramble within three days for RAF personnel deployed at Malbork. Operation CHESSMAN continues to demonstrate the UK’s commitment to NATO’s Baltic air policing mission.
Personnel from across the RAF are deployed under 140 EAW alongside forces from other NATO nations, including Sweden, the alliance’s newest member.
Typhoon really is the perfect plane for these air policing missions.
Fortunately the Russian bomber fleet will be gone before they retire in the 2040’s
Slava Ukraini 🫡
😂😁👍
Will it only ever be shadowing though, like at what point would they actually open fire, what’s it gonna take, where is the red line.
If they enter our air space are they still going to just “shadow” them… Or would wey wait to react to them opening fire first one day, it would be too late by then!
Same with the ships stopping over our cables, oh we see you and we know what you are doing… But nothing ever gets done about it
Would you approve if Russian fighters shot down NATO aircraft close to Russia in international airspace?
It’s the same here, if there is no territorial infringement, it os how the game is played.
Yep, people get a we bit overexcited by nations doing exactly as they are allowed to do under international law.. we play the same game..and will be floating a number of warships across the face of china…why…because we can.
We do not cut telecoms cables in international waters at all
Umm if we though it was I our interest we would.. infact the U.S has happily smashed countries via political warfare..
In chile the US decided it would destory the elected Allende government.. CIA funded numerous opposition groups in both the political realm and the media. As the economy suffered, numerous pro and antigovernment groups crashed in the streets. The CIA would eventually be successful in overthrowing Allende which would begin the brutal Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The Uk also funded and supported pinochets brutality bloody overthrow of the elected government…. So we are not the light we are simply we….
No, but we tap them.
I blame politicians for not having the balls to do something about the Russians who are trying to enter the UK airspace and damaging underwater cables.
They should blow their ships to pieces and blow their aircraft out of the sky especially if they’re causing our country problems.
But when we have useless politicians who have never been in the armed forces like Starmer and Lammy they should never be allowed to become politicians.
These people are putting our country in peril.
I have noticed that the Labour Party have never liked the Israelis in all the time I have been born the Labour government has always picked on the Israelis and I don’t understand why they are so racist against them? Can anyone answer this question?
Have you asked chatgpt?
Honestly Isreal and the UK have never really liked each other and we actually almost went to war… we have essentially learned to tolerate each other.. but the Uk and Isreal have always been grudging friends at best.. and almost enemies at worst.
I would agree, it’s only under the last Tory government that we signed any kind of treaty with Israel and it was one of those cyber security agreements that last government handed out like sweeties to anyone that would sign them. This was done for corrupt reasons by Priti Patel and others who were all enjoying numerous Israelis supplied benefits.
Israel claims for support under the guise of being the only democracy in the region are also increasingly wearing thin. At this point it’s hard to see BiBi as anything other than a dictator and most large countries in the region are democracies of a sort. Most of the smaller ones are monarchies and close Allie’s of the UK and actually buy stuff from us rather than expecting weapons for free in exchange for lobbying gifts.
OT, anyone else seen the Broadband roll out into rural areas to be part of the 5% 1.5% story?
I seen it in the Tory graph so take it with a pinch of salt.
However rural broadband would very much fall under resilience infrastructure spending as out lined by NATO in the 1.5%. As would any road or rail improvements. HS2 would also fall under this due to the ability to move large numbers of personnel to the HS1 and the freeing up of freight corridors.
all investment under nuclear and renewables would also come under the 1.5%.
For the UK it probably makes much more financial sense to invest in becoming energy self sufficient than it does to spend billions trying to keep a lid on Middle East tensions and forever wars.
I have no issue with the government spending more on any infrastructure.
Neither do I.
However, including broadband to small villages and Hamlets as part of defence spending is rather stretching it!
Reinforcing bridges, cyber, maintaining runways, refurbing old bunkers, physical protection of CNI and the main Fibre Optic “Backbone”, sure, those could all be seen to be defence related.
Osborne was rightly slated/hated for shoving all sorts into defence spending, this government should be treated no differently if they try the same ruse.
It’s totally different to anything Osbourne did. The 1.5% is not defence spending. It’s infrastructure spending and it’s been set up purely to attempt to placate trump.
Personally I don’t believe in it in the first place , 5% of GDP is way too much to spend on defence but I can get behind 1.5% on infrastructure as its pretty much what everyone in Europe already spends. The USA won’t get anywhere near 5% even if infrastructure is included and nearly 1/3rd of their current spending goes on health care.
I actually agree on 5% as core defence spending, with the size of our forces, not sure how one would efficiently spend it.
On broadband to small villages, well, it’s not even “defence related” which i understand the 1.5 to be.
So yes, while different to Osborne and pensions, it is not defence related, so shouldn’t be included in my view.
Yes, I believe that’s the issue. Without a draft there is no way to spend 5% of GDP on defence and I am against a draft. Other than that you just end up buying alot of foreign kit and jacking up prices.
That’s fine in war time but not in peace time.
The UK normal peace time defence spending has been 2-3% of GDP. once you exceed this level you begin to hollow out the economy.
We are waiting for what until we get the required orders for additional F35Bs, F35As, More Poseidon, Wedgetail order back up to 5 with intention to go towards 7?
When are these orders actually going to happen?
I personally think we should order another batch of typhoon unless there is clear evidence the F35 series aircraft are so far superior to typhoon even with the new radar set.
SDSR has now been published and released, I’d hoped that there was going to be a rapid follow-on order of additional equipment and forces the UK urgently needs- especially GBAD systems.
Well reportedly the Wedgetails are well behind schedule for testing with two of the aircraft not having flown at all.
Also Typhoon Production is to increase to 20-30 (a year I presume), according to news from the Paris Airshow.
Europe wide? Not 20-30 in the UK surely?
Yeah I assume across their entire production line, the tweet didn’t have more to it.
I’ve read the press release, the Euro fighter consortium must have some evidence this is required either by national governments indicating orders are imminent or pump priming from increased defence budgets to move the European wide production upto 20/ year soonish then 30+ aircraft a year into the 2030s if demand is there.
Hopefully the UK is about to order a few dozen more.
There is a new military framework document being released next week with details in it.
However F35 LOT 19 is about to be closed so we won’t be able to place any new orders for another 1 to 2 years. The next available production slots (Lot 20) will be delivery’s in 2030.
That’s worrying. They’ve probably missed the bus on F35s then until the 2030s.
I fear you’ll be waiting a long time.
I dont think HMG,at heart, have any interest defence.