Russian Mig Jets, Probing for Resistance Over Estonia, Could Signal Revival of Cold War-Era Game of Chicken

Three Russian Mig-31 fighter jets roamed through Estonian airspace today until they were parried by Italian F-35s. The 12-minute intrusion by “Foxhound” warjets gives new urgency to a meeting next week of European defense ministers.Later today, two Russian fighter jets flew a low pass over Poland’s Petrobaltic drilling platform in the Baltic sea. Polish Border Guards reported on X: “The platform’s safety zone was violated.”The European Union meeting has been called to design a 4,000-mile “drone wall,” stretching from the Arctic to the Black Sea. “We want really to move ahead with very, very intensive and effective preparations to start to fill this gap, which is really very dangerous for us,” the EU’s defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, told Reuters yesterday.That was hours before the Russian MiGs buzzed Estonia’s Vaindloo Island, the northern point of the former Soviet republic. The aircraft did not have flight plans, their transponders were not switched on, and they were not in contact with air traffic control, Estonia said. The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, said today: “This was no accident.”The MiG trio over Estonia represents Moscow’s latest aerial incursion into countries that once were part of the Soviet Union or members of the Warsaw Pact. That alliance confronted members of the North Atlantic Treaty during the Cold War. Ten days ago, as many as two dozen unarmed Russian drones flew into Poland.Several were on flight paths toward Rzeszów, the main staging air and rail hub for Western military aid for Ukraine. Then, on Saturday, a drone flew for 50 minutes over Romania. Two Romanian F-16s scrambled and escorted the drone out of Romanian air space. Yesterday, the remains of a Russian Geran attack drone were found on a beach in Latvia. In Lithuania, political debate has echoed all week long over reports that the defense minister, seeking to look good, covered up reports of Russian drone incursions last week.“Putin has long been testing the borders,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday in a parliamentary debate at Berlin. “He is sabotaging. He is spying. He is murdering. He is trying to unsettle us. Russia wants to destabilise our societies.”President Vladimir Putin, for his part, signalled his hostility to the West earlier this week by appearing dressed in olive green military fatigues to inspect a joint Russia-Belarus military exercise, “Zapad 2025,” or “West 2025.” In the 1980s, Mr. Putin started his government career in East Germany with the KGB. Now, he seems to be drawing on the old Cold War playbook to gauge Western reaction and resolve.From the 1960s through the 1980s, a generation of American soldiers were trained to respond to Soviet military probes, largely on the border of the two Germanys or off the coast of Alaska. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, retired Soviet military officials said the tactics were designed to test American reaction times, sometimes with stopwatches. This international game of chicken was designed to avoid direct clashes. Between 1950 and 1964, outside the Korean and Vietnam wars, Soviet warplanes shot down 14 American warplanes. After that period, there was only one shootdown until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. During the early period, American planes shot down only three Soviet military jets. Today, NATO is watching — and seems prepared to pull out its own Cold War playbook. “Earlier today, Russian jets violated Estonian airspace. NATO responded immediately and intercepted the Russian aircraft,” a spokeswoman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Allison Hart, said on X. “This is yet another example of reckless Russian behaviour and NATO’s ability to respond.”Last week, after the drone incursion into Poland, NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, announced the launch of “Operation Eastern Sentry.” It will include a multi-layered drone wall. This air barrier will be built with advice from Ukraine, currently the foremost practitioner of drone warfare in the West. In keeping with the Trump administration’s desire that Europe defend itself, American involvement is expected to be minimal in the multibillion-dollar project.Yesterday, Ukraine announced that its troops will soon start instructing Polish drone operators at Lipa, a village 28 miles southeast of Rzeszów. The wall is to feature acoustic sensors that will relay data to mobile units equipped with machine guns, and anti-aircraft cannons. Also in the mix will be interceptor drones and electronic warfare equipment for jamming.On the ground, bulldozers are excavating the Baltic Defense Line, a roughly 1,300-mile-long series of anti-tank ditches, mined bridges, and “dragons teeth,” which are cement tetrapods. Today, as work progressed on the first 25-mile section in Estonia, defense officials made a point of inviting reporters and photographers to document the work.

Russian Mig Jets, Probing for Resistance Over Estonia, Could Signal Revival of Cold War-Era Game of Chicken

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