Almost everyone is unprepared when it comes to fending off the Russian bear. So long as everyone continues to believe Russia is a backwards country, coupled with country leaders that continue to make concessions (i.e. Obama administration), this will continue to happen. Eventually, they will have first strike capability — if they don’t already. Every so often, and more often during the last few years, the ‘intelligence community’ is caught by ‘surprise’ about a new capability from countries such as Russia, China, Iran, etc…
According to the Svenska Dagbladet, after midnight on Mar. 29 (Good Friday), the Swedish radars detected six fast
planes coming from the east, originating from the St. Petersburg area and overflying the Gulf of Finland.
In reality, the route the aircraft were flying wasn’t suspect: Russian bombers periodically fly across the Baltic Sea to reach the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, located between Lithuania and Poland.
However, on Mar. 29, the two Tu-22M3 Backfire heavy bombers, capable of carrying cruise missiles and nuclear weapons, and their four Su-27 Flanker fighter jets escort got dangerously close to the Swedish airspace and, at 2 AM local time, they skirted Gotland island, some 30-40 kilometers off the Swedish territorial waters.
After they carried out their mock attacks (on targets in the Stockholm area and Southern Sweden, according to Swedish military sources who talked to Svenska Dagbladet) they turned back and returned towards Russia.
The episode is similar to those Soviet Union exercises typical of the Cold War, when bombers carrying the traditional Red Star flew quite close to the Swedish airspace boundaries and got caught by Swedish interceptors. Such “visits” ended in 1992 but returned in 2011 when Putin resumed the long-range flights of its strategic bombers.
Although some Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers flew over the Baltic Sea in the last year, what’s unusual in Mar. 29 incident is that the Russian activity took place at night and, above all, it found the Swedish Air Force totally unprepared.
Full article: Russia Simulated A Large-Scale Aerial Night Attack On Sweden (Business Insider)
