A Russian reconnaissance plane briefly violated Swedish air space on Friday, Sweden’s military authorities announced on Saturday, Belga News Agency reports.
Sweden’s Defence Department said in a statement that a Russian AN-30 helicopter flew east of the Danish island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea, and entered Swedish airspace. It said its teams followed the entire event and photographed it.
Sweden’s Defence Minister denounced the incursion. “Violating Swedish airspace is totally unacceptable,” Minister Peter Hultqvist wrote to Swedish public television SVT. “We are, of course, going to protest through diplomatic channels,” he added.
This is not the first Russian incursion since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. In early March, four Russian fighter planes briefly violated Swedish air space east of the Baltic island of Gotland.
The invasion of Ukraine has caused public opinion in Sweden, a non-aligned country, to swing towards possible NATO membership, with 54% of Swedes now in favour of their country joining the alliance, according to a poll published on Saturday by the Novus Institute.
Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats plan to decide whether to seek NATO membership by 24 May.
In Finland, whose authorities are also contemplating signing on to NATO, an IL-96-300 plane belonging to the Russian government violated the country’s airspace for three minutes in early April.
