Swedish fighters intercept Russian jets near border

STOCKHOLM: Sweden said Saturday it had scrambled two pairs of JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets a day earlier to intercept two Russian combat aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea near its airspace.
The two incidents occurred Friday in the southern and northern parts of the Baltic Sea. NATO fighter jets also took off “to maintain security in the shared airspace,” Sweden’s military said in a statement.
Swedish airspace was not violated in connection with the incidents, it said.
“The Russian actions are serious and constitute a recurring pattern of behavior that threatens both our territorial integrity and security,” Vice Admiral Ewa Skoog Haslum, the armed forces’ chief of joint operations, said in the statement.
Sweden joined NATO in March 2024.
Tensions over the Baltic Sea have risen sharply since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.