NATO | This is how NATO planes will fly in the skies of Finland in the future: The military alliance will receive unprecedented information about Russia

Finland joining the military alliance NATO will soon bring the alliance’s aircraft intended for reconnaissance to the skies of Finland.

American planes have already been seen in Finnish skies in connection with exercises.

Intelligence aircraft are particularly attracted to Finland by its convenient location near Russia’s most important military strategic area, i.e. the bases of the Northern Fleet.

In addition, it is a short distance from Finland to Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg, and the armed forces that protect it. There are also central headquarters in the St. Petersburg area.

“There is no reason why the territory of Finland should not be used for aerial reconnaissance”, says EVP lieutenant colonel Juhani Pihlajamaa.

“We see those planes in the direction of the Black Sea and in Europe, so why not fly them here as well. It is, of course, a different matter whether how much information is made public about them or whether they fly in the dark.”

Pihlajamaa is a former Finnish defense attorney for Russia and Ukraine. In their work, defense agents are administratively subordinate to the Chief of Intelligence of the General Staff, which means that they also have intelligence tasks in their country of station.

For enquiry the aircraft in question have become public especially after Russia attacked Ukraine.

Both manned and unmanned, i.e. remotely controlled, machines are used for reconnaissance. There are numerous models of both.

The most common unmanned aerial vehicles in European skies are the American MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk. They are the basic equipment of the United States armed forces.

For example, Northrop Grumman, the manufacturer of the Global Hawk, says that the plane’s sensors reach a distance of up to about 500 kilometers. This corresponds to the theoretical radar horizon of the plane when it flies at an altitude of 18 kilometers. However, the ranges of individual sensors are secret information.

Frequently seen manned intelligence or surveillance aircraft used by NATO countries in the skies of Europe are, for example, the signals intelligence aircraft Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint, the air surveillance and combat control aircraft Boeing E-3 Sentry, the maritime surveillance aircraft Boeing P-8 Poseidon and the Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint using sar radar Stars.

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The Sar radar can be used to see, for example, troop movements on the ground in the dark or through clouds.

Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Northrop Grumman.

Many the intelligence planes of the western countries fly with transponders on, so that their progress can be monitored from applications on computers or smart devices.

A transponder is a signal transmitter that sends information about the plane to air traffic control. It is sometimes also called a secondary radar receiver.

Various intelligence machines from Western countries have been seen in the past, even on a daily basis, around Kaliningrad, Russia, for example. However, the war in Ukraine has increased the visible air reconnaissance enormously.

Read more: Historical cat-and-mouse game over Ukraine: British and US intelligence machines watch over Russia and gather information about its preparations for war

Manned and unmanned aircraft are now flying especially in Poland near the border between Belarus and Ukraine. In addition, they can be observed in Romania, whose coast is where the planes monitor the movements of the Russian Black Sea fleet and what is happening in the direction of Moldova and Transnistria.

Over the Black Sea, Western intelligence planes also move off Crimea, which annoys the Russians. Most recently, on March 14, Russian fighter jets disrupted a reconnaissance flight of an American MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft and caused it to crash into the Black Sea.

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Visible reconnaissance, i.e. the use of transponders, is also a message to the other side that it is being watched. However, the flight intelligence visible to the public does not give a complete picture of what is happening in the air.

Some of the reconnaissance planes fly with the transponder off, i.e. in the dark. This is how the Defense Forces, for example, works Casa signals intelligence machine.

The Swedish intelligence planes, or “Ravens”, on the other hand, also fly visibly with transponders on. They often fly in front of Kaliningrad and on the border between Poland and Belarus.

It is not known where everywhere the signals intelligence machine of the Defense Forces has been.

“You could imagine that it would have once visited Kaliningrad to listen, but that’s just an educated guess,” says Pihlajamaa.

A signals reconnaissance plane built on a Casa transport plane used by Finnish military intelligence.

NATO countries intelligence is interested in military exercises behind Finland’s eastern border and anything unusual, such as GPS jamming, Pihlajamaa says.

“NATO has had a pretty big gap with Finland, which is now closing. Of course, we have probably been able to complete it with our own actions. It is certain that some information has been shared, but the surveillance planes of NATO countries have not been able to fly directly over Finland.”

When Finland becomes a NATO country, reconnaissance planes can fly as far as the Russian border from Latvia to Estonia and further through Finland to Norway. In the Arctic Ocean, they can also turn east in international airspace and fly along the coast of Kola.

Behind NATO’s eastern border, which stretches from Latvia to Norway, Russia has its Sixth Army in the south and the Northern Fleet and the 14th Army Corps in the north. In addition, St. Petersburg has shipyards used by the navy and part of the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet, whose main base is in Kaliningrad.

“Nato is certainly also interested in the fact that Russia has conducted quite a lot of its missile tests from the White Sea. It has been a bit of a blackout from NATO’s point of view, which now the Finnish fleet has been able to follow something. It opens in a completely different way now,” says Pihlajamaa.

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NATO is also interested in the Laatoka region, where the Russians have aviation operations. This activity is being investigated by the Defense Forces already.

Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft used by the United States Air Force.

Finland however, beyond the eastern border there are also vast areas that are militarily empty. According to Pihlajamaa, the area around the highway between St. Petersburg and Murmansk is an interesting strip.

“There is nothing between the motorized infantry brigade on Kannans and the arctic brigade in Alakurt.”

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In this regard, however, the situation may be changing. Russia has said that it is strengthening the military power of northwestern Russia because Finland and Sweden are about to join NATO.

Doctor of military sciences who studied the Russian armed forces, evp lieutenant colonel Vladimir Panshin has estimated that Russia will establish a new ground forces group in Petrozavodsk, which would act as a body for the military corps to be established in wartime.

In the screenshot of the Flightradar 24 application, a reconnaissance plane of the Swedish Armed Forces flies on the border between Belarus and Ukraine in March.

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