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The European Leadership Network said the incidents present a “highly disturbing picture” of violations of national airspace, emergency air-defense scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea and other dangerous actions on a regular basis over a wide area.
Perpetuating a volatile standoff between a nuclear-armed state and a nuclear-armed alliance and its partners “is risky at best,” the group said in the report released today. “It could prove catastrophic at worst.”
The intensity and gravity of incidents involving Russian and N
ATO militaries and security agencies have visibly increased since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, according to the London-based group, which includes former European defense and foreign ministers.
“Even though direct military confrontation has been avoided so far, the mix of more aggressive Russian posturing and the readiness of Western forces to show resolve increases the risk of unintended escalation and the danger of losing control over events,” the group said.
Number, Gravity
The report adds to the debate about whether President Vladimir Putin is flexing Russia’s military muscle to test the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the U.S.-European defense alliance, or simply increasing readiness amid the tensions that followed Putin’s annexation of Crimea and support of separatists in Ukraine.The “increased number and gravity of incidents” involving NATO and Nordic nations suggests that Russian forces have been “authorized and encouraged” to act more aggressively, the report concludes.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said over the weekend that the U.S. and its allies are to blame for tensions with Russia because they engaged in “triumphalism” after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some are even saying that it’s already begun,” Gorbachev said at an event in Berlin marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to the Associated Press.
NATO General
NATO’s top military officer, Air Force General Philip Breedlove, told reporters last week that Russia is using “a larger, more complex formation of aircraft” with “a little bit more provocative flight path” in recent weeks.Russia probably is trying to signal “that they are a great power and that they have the ability to exert these kinds of influences in our thinking,” Breedlove said at a Pentagon press conference.
While calling the Russian flights “problematic,” Breedlove said there has been no need for direct consultations with Russia.
“We do not have those conversations,” he said. As long as the flights and interceptions are handled professionally, he said, “we do not routinely talk about them.”
While German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Oct. 30 that she’s “not acutely concerned” about what she called “very robust exercises” by Russia, the report warns of the potential for accidents and misjudgments that could be “catastrophic.”
Three Incidents
In addition to encounters that could be called routine or near-routine, the report identifies 11 “serious” incidents, and three others that carried a “high probability” of causing casualties or direct military confrontation.The three were: a narrowly avoided collision on March 3 between a civilian SAS Group (SAS) airliner taking off from Copenhagen and a Russian reconnaissance plane operating without its transponder, a device that identifies a plane; the Sept. 5 abduction of an Estonian intelligence officer from a border post; and the suspected movement of a Russian submarine in Swedish territorial waters, which triggered a sub hunt last month.
Overhead, NATO has scrambled jets repeatedly as Russian fighter jets and long-range bombers were tracked over the Baltics, North Sea and Atlantic. In some instances, Russian planes didn’t use on-board transponders, “which poses a danger to civilian air traffic,” according to NATO.
Allied jets tracked Russian fighter aircraft along Europe’s fringes, bringing the number of interceptions so far in 2014 to 100, three times last year’s total, according to NATO. Still, alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Oct. 30 that “it’s not a Cold War situation.”
Former Soviet States
Russia’s military maneuvers have drawn increased attention amid tensions over Ukraine, which isn’t a NATO member, and potential Russian threats against former Soviet states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are part of the alliance.NATO this year has intensified air policing over the Baltic nations as a deterrent to Russian incursions. From January to September, NATO conducted 68 “hot” identification and interdiction missions along the Lithuanian border, and Latvia recorded more than 150 incidents of Russian planes approaching its airspace, the report said, citing news reports.
In Washington, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak expressed doubts about the suspected submarine encounter and said the Russian flight incidents were benign.
“The significance of that is very simple: Our strategic forces are training,” he told a group of reporters last week. It is “exactly like any armed forces in any country,” he said.
“We fly a little bit more than we used to, but there was a period, especially in the ’90’s, when we didn’t fly at all because we didn’t have the money to fuel the aircraft,” Kislyak said. “Currently, the situation in the country is significantly better, and we can afford something that is needed under all circumstances.”
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