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NATO Ended Russia's Estonian Air Incursions

92 points by madspindel 11mo ago

chmod775 11mo ago
I do enjoy some military fiction as much as the next guy, but without some sources this might as well just be that.
mckirk 11mo ago
This reads cool and all, but I also can't help help but feel like it might not have been as much of a 'gotcha' as the text makes it out to be. Who knows what kind of information the Russians got from this episode. The closer the NATO response is to what would actually happen in a combat scenario, the more valuable such a provocation is to them, I suspect.
- tgv 11mo ago
  The author does have a point about making incursions so normal we no longer react to them.
- butler14 11mo ago
  And that’s before you even get to the asymmetric costs.
catlikesshrimp 11mo ago
It might have been generated. It reads exactly like some generic voice talking on FB. I am on the side of this propaganda, but it's propagansa.
a3w 11mo ago
Useless propaganda piece. To probably quote Terry Pratchett, at least it is proper-ganda.
- jryle70 11mo ago
  When you like something, it's engaging and informative. When you don't, well, call it propaganda. I suppose anything is propaganda, since nothing is pure facts.
  - littlestymaar 11mo ago
    I'd rather have a sourced analysis of something I don't like than read a dude writing an unsourced cheering post celebrating how powerful my army is. Propaganda can be done by both your enemies and your own side, and the later is the most dangerous one. The more you like it, the more skeptical you should be.
    - general1465 11mo ago
      Everything is propaganda. Even your and mine comments are propaganda. Because propaganda can also be called marketing. And every text is marketing of ones own opinion.
    - nozzlegear 11mo ago
      > and the later is the most dangerous one Genuine question: why?
      - littlestymaar 11mo ago
        Because buying your own lies about the strength of your army makes you complacent. There's a reason why dictators have a terrible war time track record.
      - DocTomoe 11mo ago
        You tend to distrust the propaganda of the other side. You are not quite as distrustful of the propaganda of your own side. If it is clever enough not to appear as a cheerleader like this article, you may barely notice it cherrypicking the benefits of a story. Obligatory: "Are we the baddies?"-sketch illustrates the concept very nicely.
  - torginus 11mo ago
cookiengineer 11mo ago
For the last 60 years, Russia behaved like this to test NATO's defenses constantly. Only once was an incursion to Turkish airspace. After a warning it was shot down. Never happened again. You tell me what's the better strategy to deal with Russia. If you give leeway to a bully, the bully's gonna keep on bullying.
- hnaccount_rng 11mo ago
  But neither was it only one incursion into Turkish airspace, not did Turkey not pay a price for it
  - ivandenysov 11mo ago
    What price did Turkey pay for shooting down a Russian military plane on their territory?
    - amelius 11mo ago
      I didn't read it yet, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo...
    - themgt 11mo ago
      You can skim through the wikis for some color, but tldr Turkey is generally playing amoral "middle power dilemma" politics rather than the Marvel universe fan fiction version: In June 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sent a letter, on the recommendation of Farkhad Akhmedov[123] to Russian President Vladimir Putin expressing sympathy and 'deep condolences' to the family of the victims. An investigation was also reopened into the suspected Turkish military personnel involved in the incident.[124] Three weeks later (in the meantime, there had been a coup d'état attempt against him), Erdoğan announced in an interview that the two Turkish pilots who downed Russian aircraft were arrested on suspicion that they have links to the Gülen movement, and that a court should find out "the truth" On 12 September 2017, Turkey announced that it had signed a deal to purchase the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system; the deal was characterised by American press as ″the clearest sign of [Recep Erdoğan]′s pivot toward Russia and away from NATO and the West" that ″cements a recent rapprochement with Russia″.[109] Despite pressure to cancel the deal on the part of the Trump administration, in April 2018 the scheduled delivery of the S-400 batteries had been brought forward from the first quarter of 2020 to July 2019.[110] In September 2019, Russia sent the Sukhoi Su-35S and the 5th Generation stealth fighter Su-57 to Turkey for Technofest Istanbul 2019. The jets landed at Turkey's Atatürk Airport, weeks after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to Moscow and discussed stealth fighter with Vladimir Putin.[111] In November 2021, Russia offered assistance to Turkey in developing new-generation fighter jet to Turkey.[112][113] Some Turkish officials have also shown interest to buy Russian jets if the US F-16 deal fails.[114][115][116][117][118] In 2024, Washington warned Turkey of potential consequences if it did not reduce exports of US military-linked hardware to Russia, critical for Moscow's war efforts. Assistant Commerce Secretary Matthew Axelrod met Turkish officials to halt this trade, emphasizing the need to curb the flow of American-origin components vital to Russia's military. The issue strained NATO relations, as Turkey increased trade with Russia despite US and EU sanctions since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Axelrod urged Turkey to enforce a ban on transshipping US items to Russia, warning that Moscow was exploiting Turkey's trade policy. Despite a rise in Turkey's exports of military-linked goods to Russia and intermediaries, there was no corresponding increase in reported imports in those destinations, suggesting a "ghost trade."[119] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Turkey_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Turkey_relation...
oever 11mo ago
There is no place called 'Udem' in Germany. There is a place called Uden in the Netherlands. Close to it is the military Volkel Air Base. It has fighter jets and nuclear bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkel_Air_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkel_Air_Base
- flohofwoe 11mo ago
  It's a forgivable typo for Uedem, which is in Germany, close to the Dutch border and does indeed house the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uedem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uedem
- thunfischbrot 11mo ago
  > NATO was monitoring the Baltic States air space from ground radars and from a Gielenkirchen based AWACS several hundred kilometers back near the German/Polish border. There is also no place called „Gielenkirchen“. It‘s likely a typo of „Geilenkirchen“, which indeed does have a NATO base. But it is also at the German/Dutch border, while the article places it at the German/Polish border. I am questioning the rest of the article based on these findings. They are straight-forward to check before publishing.
  - flohofwoe 11mo ago
    > ...based AWACS several hundred kilometers back near the German/Polish border This should also have triggered the 'fact checker alarm bells' because there are no NATO bases in the area of former East Germany to this day (honoring the agreement with the late Soviet Union to not station foreign NATO troops in former East Germany - e.g. the only "no NATO East expansion promise" that actually exists in writing) - and AFAIK apart from the Eurofighter Luftwaffengeschwader 73 in Rostock-Laage (also not exactly close to the Polish border) there is no presence of the German airforce in East Germany either. Although tbf, the sentence could also be read as the Geilenkirchen-based AWACS plane operating several hundred kilometers back (from Estonia) near the German/Polish border - which I guess makes a lot more sense than moving Geilenkirchen several hundred kilometers to the east :) In any case I agree that it's a poorly written article and should be classified as fiction until confirmed by more reliable sources.
juliangmp 11mo ago
I'd say the only source listed is the guy who wrote it, but he doesn't even give his actual name...
DocTomoe 11mo ago
A bit too horray-patriotic for my tastes. What actually happened: - A group of 40 year old Russian interceptors flew just beyond the airspace border, to test NATO response times. - NATO responded and revealed capabilities - someone in Russian military R&D got new data to work with.
- flohofwoe 11mo ago
  > - someone in Russian military R&D got new data to work with. Also doubtful tbh because such interceptions (although without actual airspace violation) happen every other week over the Baltic Sea. It might have been the first time F-35s were used(?), but I really doubt they took off their radar reflectors to 'reveal capabilities'.
supermatt 11mo ago
> This is why another similar move hasn’t happened, and why Russia will think twice before it does so again. It literally happened again the following month. Is this an AI generated article or something?
torginus 11mo ago
I think someone should also tell the Russians that.
oliwarner 11mo ago
If breathlessness was a writing style. Seriously tiring when every other paragraph is a soft trailer for action much later on. Which, by the way, is all conjecture. Even if everything happened as described (citation needed), they have no idea what the Russians knew. For a piss-them-off mission like this, watching the response and playing dumb seems far wiser than reacting.

92 points by madspindel 11mo ago

I do enjoy some military fiction as much as the next guy, but without some sources this might as well just be that.

mckirk 11mo ago

This reads cool and all, but I also can't help help but feel like it might not have been as much of a 'gotcha' as the text makes it out to be. Who knows what kind of information the Russians got from this episode. The closer the NATO response is to what would actually happen in a combat scenario, the more valuable such a provocation is to them, I suspect.

tgv 11mo ago
The author does have a point about making incursions so normal we no longer react to them.
butler14 11mo ago
And that’s before you even get to the asymmetric costs.

catlikesshrimp 11mo ago

It might have been generated. It reads exactly like some generic voice talking on FB. I am on the side of this propaganda, but it's propagansa.

a3w 11mo ago

Useless propaganda piece. To probably quote Terry Pratchett, at least it is proper-ganda.

jryle70 11mo ago
When you like something, it's engaging and informative. When you don't, well, call it propaganda. I suppose anything is propaganda, since nothing is pure facts.
- littlestymaar 11mo ago
  I'd rather have a sourced analysis of something I don't like than read a dude writing an unsourced cheering post celebrating how powerful my army is. Propaganda can be done by both your enemies and your own side, and the later is the most dangerous one. The more you like it, the more skeptical you should be.
  - general1465 11mo ago
    Everything is propaganda. Even your and mine comments are propaganda. Because propaganda can also be called marketing. And every text is marketing of ones own opinion.
  - nozzlegear 11mo ago
    > and the later is the most dangerous one Genuine question: why?
    - littlestymaar 11mo ago
      Because buying your own lies about the strength of your army makes you complacent. There's a reason why dictators have a terrible war time track record.
    - DocTomoe 11mo ago
      You tend to distrust the propaganda of the other side. You are not quite as distrustful of the propaganda of your own side. If it is clever enough not to appear as a cheerleader like this article, you may barely notice it cherrypicking the benefits of a story. Obligatory: "Are we the baddies?"-sketch illustrates the concept very nicely.
- torginus 11mo ago

cookiengineer 11mo ago

For the last 60 years, Russia behaved like this to test NATO's defenses constantly. Only once was an incursion to Turkish airspace. After a warning it was shot down. Never happened again. You tell me what's the better strategy to deal with Russia. If you give leeway to a bully, the bully's gonna keep on bullying.

hnaccount_rng 11mo ago
But neither was it only one incursion into Turkish airspace, not did Turkey not pay a price for it
- ivandenysov 11mo ago
  What price did Turkey pay for shooting down a Russian military plane on their territory?
  - amelius 11mo ago
    I didn't read it yet, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo...
  - themgt 11mo ago
    You can skim through the wikis for some color, but tldr Turkey is generally playing amoral "middle power dilemma" politics rather than the Marvel universe fan fiction version: In June 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sent a letter, on the recommendation of Farkhad Akhmedov[123] to Russian President Vladimir Putin expressing sympathy and 'deep condolences' to the family of the victims. An investigation was also reopened into the suspected Turkish military personnel involved in the incident.[124] Three weeks later (in the meantime, there had been a coup d'état attempt against him), Erdoğan announced in an interview that the two Turkish pilots who downed Russian aircraft were arrested on suspicion that they have links to the Gülen movement, and that a court should find out "the truth" On 12 September 2017, Turkey announced that it had signed a deal to purchase the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system; the deal was characterised by American press as ″the clearest sign of [Recep Erdoğan]′s pivot toward Russia and away from NATO and the West" that ″cements a recent rapprochement with Russia″.[109] Despite pressure to cancel the deal on the part of the Trump administration, in April 2018 the scheduled delivery of the S-400 batteries had been brought forward from the first quarter of 2020 to July 2019.[110] In September 2019, Russia sent the Sukhoi Su-35S and the 5th Generation stealth fighter Su-57 to Turkey for Technofest Istanbul 2019. The jets landed at Turkey's Atatürk Airport, weeks after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to Moscow and discussed stealth fighter with Vladimir Putin.[111] In November 2021, Russia offered assistance to Turkey in developing new-generation fighter jet to Turkey.[112][113] Some Turkish officials have also shown interest to buy Russian jets if the US F-16 deal fails.[114][115][116][117][118] In 2024, Washington warned Turkey of potential consequences if it did not reduce exports of US military-linked hardware to Russia, critical for Moscow's war efforts. Assistant Commerce Secretary Matthew Axelrod met Turkish officials to halt this trade, emphasizing the need to curb the flow of American-origin components vital to Russia's military. The issue strained NATO relations, as Turkey increased trade with Russia despite US and EU sanctions since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Axelrod urged Turkey to enforce a ban on transshipping US items to Russia, warning that Moscow was exploiting Turkey's trade policy. Despite a rise in Turkey's exports of military-linked goods to Russia and intermediaries, there was no corresponding increase in reported imports in those destinations, suggesting a "ghost trade."[119] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Turkey_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Turkey_relation...

oever 11mo ago

There is no place called 'Udem' in Germany. There is a place called Uden in the Netherlands. Close to it is the military Volkel Air Base. It has fighter jets and nuclear bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkel_Air_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkel_Air_Base

flohofwoe 11mo ago
It's a forgivable typo for Uedem, which is in Germany, close to the Dutch border and does indeed house the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uedem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uedem
thunfischbrot 11mo ago
> NATO was monitoring the Baltic States air space from ground radars and from a Gielenkirchen based AWACS several hundred kilometers back near the German/Polish border. There is also no place called „Gielenkirchen“. It‘s likely a typo of „Geilenkirchen“, which indeed does have a NATO base. But it is also at the German/Dutch border, while the article places it at the German/Polish border. I am questioning the rest of the article based on these findings. They are straight-forward to check before publishing.
- flohofwoe 11mo ago
  > ...based AWACS several hundred kilometers back near the German/Polish border This should also have triggered the 'fact checker alarm bells' because there are no NATO bases in the area of former East Germany to this day (honoring the agreement with the late Soviet Union to not station foreign NATO troops in former East Germany - e.g. the only "no NATO East expansion promise" that actually exists in writing) - and AFAIK apart from the Eurofighter Luftwaffengeschwader 73 in Rostock-Laage (also not exactly close to the Polish border) there is no presence of the German airforce in East Germany either. Although tbf, the sentence could also be read as the Geilenkirchen-based AWACS plane operating several hundred kilometers back (from Estonia) near the German/Polish border - which I guess makes a lot more sense than moving Geilenkirchen several hundred kilometers to the east :) In any case I agree that it's a poorly written article and should be classified as fiction until confirmed by more reliable sources.

juliangmp 11mo ago

I'd say the only source listed is the guy who wrote it, but he doesn't even give his actual name...

DocTomoe 11mo ago

A bit too horray-patriotic for my tastes. What actually happened: - A group of 40 year old Russian interceptors flew just beyond the airspace border, to test NATO response times. - NATO responded and revealed capabilities - someone in Russian military R&D got new data to work with.

flohofwoe 11mo ago
> - someone in Russian military R&D got new data to work with. Also doubtful tbh because such interceptions (although without actual airspace violation) happen every other week over the Baltic Sea. It might have been the first time F-35s were used(?), but I really doubt they took off their radar reflectors to 'reveal capabilities'.

supermatt 11mo ago

> This is why another similar move hasn’t happened, and why Russia will think twice before it does so again. It literally happened again the following month. Is this an AI generated article or something?

torginus 11mo ago

I think someone should also tell the Russians that.

oliwarner 11mo ago

If breathlessness was a writing style. Seriously tiring when every other paragraph is a soft trailer for action much later on. Which, by the way, is all conjecture. Even if everything happened as described (citation needed), they have no idea what the Russians knew. For a piss-them-off mission like this, watching the response and playing dumb seems far wiser than reacting.