It was an intense month of July for the Italian F-35s engaged in Estonia to protect the skies of the Atlantic Alliance. The latest scramble alarm made public and triggered on the Amari base last Thursday, when the NATO center in Uedem, Germany, detected on the radar three unidentified aircraft moving from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad towards the area of competence of the allied forces. It immediately activated the task forces engaged in the Baltic, and in particular the Spanish Eurofighters leading the engagement in Lithuania, and the Italian F-35s in Estonia. The jets approached the formation, identifying two Russian IL-22PP electronic warfare aircraft and a Su-24 fighter. At the same time, explained Ramstein’s Allied Air Command (also in Germany), an IL-76 strategic transport aircraft was “tracked, intercepted and identified in the same area “. All the aircraft in question had not provided flight plans and had their transponders turned off. Once the identification was made, the Italian and Spanish aircraft returned to their respective bases. The activity is quite intense. In the Lithuanian case, the scramble alarms are almost daily (as promptly reconstructed by the Ministry of Defense).
In Estonia, the Italian F-35s were also activated in the afternoon of 15 July. They were actually already in flight to participate in the NATO exercise “Furious Wolf 21-02” but, a few minutes after take-off, the order was received from Uedem to interrupt the mission to intercept an unidentified aircraft in the area of competence. The aircraft in this “was quickly reached by the two Italian fighters while flying over the international waters of the Baltic Sea,” explained our Defense Staff. After identification, the F-35s re-attached to the exercise. At the end of it, however, a new take-off order arrived “to intercept another plane that was passing through NATO airspace without having established contact with the air traffic bodies; identified the aircraft,
Just a few days earlier it had gone worse for President Gitanas Nauseda and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez , who met at the Siauliai base to greet the role of the Iberian forces in the air defense of the Baltic. The press conference ended abruptly when the take-off alarm went off. The Spanish aircraft had to activate to intercept a pair of Su-24s, also moving from Kaliningrad.
Even in June, the Italian aircraft had been busy. On two different occasions they had been the protagonists of the first confrontation between a fifth generation NATO set-up with a Russian Su-30 fighter and the first F-35 interception on Russian strategic bombers (two Tu-160s, escorted by Su-35 and Su -27).
The Italian F-35s, from the 32nd Wing of the Air Force, arrived at the Amari base in Estonia at the beginning of May, taking over command of NATO’s Air Policing mission from the Luftwaffe. This was enough to mark a new record in the NATO sphere for the Italian Air Force, which placed the first fifth generation aircraft to protect the Baltic skies for the Atlantic Alliance. The same aircraft were the protagonists, in 2019, of the first fifth generation operational use in NATO. In that case, the Air Policing mission was to Iceland, then repeated the following summer.
With the “Air-E Baltic Eagle II” task force, they are now engaged in Estonia to protect the Alliance skies. The hottest activity takes the form of “Alpha scramble”, ie real air defense interventions in the event of a “quick reaction aleter”. The activity joins the training scramble, simulated events for training in operational readiness. The first “alpha” category quick take-off order was triggered on May 14, when the Italian aircraft were called to intercept an unidentified aircraft (also with the transponder off) flying over international waters, off the Estonian coast , and headed for the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The NATO Air Command explained that on that occasion it was an An-12 transport aircraft, without mentioning any escort.
Over the last few years, Air Policing’s commitments have increased, in line with the rising tension between NATO and Russia. In 2020, 350 Alliance aircraft scrambles were generated by the aerial maneuvers of Russian assets over the skies of northern Europe. Almost an alarm a day for routes increasingly frequented by the forces of Moscow (with bombers and fighters). In the summer of 2020, with the return of six Italian F-35s to Iceland, there was the first fifth generation “Alpha scramble”: two of the six Air Force aircraft took action to escort some Russian aircraft on a mission in the skies between the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Northeast Atlantic. It consisted of three Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft (with bomber and antisubmarine capability), escorted by some MiG-31 fighters,
(Photo: Defense Staff)
