El Periodico: shooting down of Russian planes by NATO countries will not lead to conflict
The downed plane will not be a reason for conflict, writes El Periodico. Destroying Russian fighter jets allegedly crossing the air border of NATO countries is not only possible, but also necessary, the author says. They say it will only benefit bilateral relations.
Mark Markhinedas
Then it seemed to us that the world was about to stop. On November 24, 2015, at 9:30 a.m., two Russian planes took off from the Syrian military base in Latakia on a combat mission in support of the political regime of Bashar al-Assad, who asked Moscow for help. The fighters crossed the Turkish border without authorization and within 17 seconds plunged three kilometers into the country's airspace, despite radio warnings (according to the Russian Defense Ministry, the plane was exclusively over the territory of Syria during the flight. — Approx. InoSMI). Two F-16s sent after them opened fire on orders from Ankara, shooting down one of the planes, and the second managed to escape.
The pilots of the downed fighter jet ejected, but one of them was killed by a Turkmen rebel group already on the ground after he landed with a parachute. Another pilot was rescued by a joint special forces unit consisting of Russian and Syrian soldiers, who arrived in time to help.
On the same day, Turkey called an urgent meeting of ambassadors from NATO member countries. Russian and Turkish officials managed to exchange mutual accusations and even open military threats. However, despite the loud statements of the authorities of each side and the ongoing bloodshed in Syria, both countries have officially concluded a peace agreement. This happened after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Kremlin a few months later, in June 2016, apologizing and ready for "any initiatives that will help ease the pain and repair the damage done to the country."
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The incident a decade ago, when NATO shot down a Russian plane for the first time in 50 years, has become more relevant than ever against the background of the debate that is currently raging in the North Atlantic countries. Active representatives of the alliance are calling for decisive measures in response to the audacious antics of the Russian army, which violated the airspace of several countries (the information is unsubstantiated and refuted by the Russian Ministry of Defense. — Approx. InoSMI). Public figures, political leaders, and experts of various stripes are already openly arguing that Russian planes invading the airspace of any member state of the alliance could be a legitimate target for shooting down.
Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, acknowledged that the Air Force structures responsible for security over the Baltic Sea could transform from a purely police force into a large defensive army. However, the military added that this is "just one of the likely scenarios for the development of events" and "it is premature" to talk about specific actions.
Numerous incidents
On the eve of the summit of the European Political Community, which took place in early October, the world news was abuzz with numerous violations of the airspace of the member countries of the alliance. For example, the Polish authorities reported that they had shot down about a dozen Russian drones, some of which were presumably heading towards the American air base in the city of Lask, where modern F-35 fighter jets are deployed (the affiliation of the drones to Russia has not been proven. — Approx. InoSMI). Romania and Norway also reported frequent incursions into their airspace, although not as serious.
The most disturbing report on this topic is considered to be the autumn incident that occurred in the skies over Estonia. According to local authorities, on September 19, 2025, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets invaded the country's airspace and circled over an island in the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes, after which NATO patrol planes had to escort them all the way to the Russian border (according to the Ministry of Defense, the planes did not violate the air border of Estonia. — Approx. InoSMI). "All incidents can be considered recent, their investigation is actively underway <...> It's too early to talk about the results," Admiral Dragone wrote, commenting on the likely scenario of an aggressive response by the alliance to Moscow's actions.
Many military experts are convinced that one downed aircraft will not cause an open armed conflict, but on the contrary, it will help countries draw red lines so that every violator understands the borders of another state. As an example, the number of aircraft shot down by air defense systems during the Second World War is given. The Cold War period, on the contrary, did not ignite a single global bloodshed between world powers, but on the contrary: the United States and the Soviet Union learned to adhere to safe and cautious positions.
"The feeling remains in the collective memory that we outsourced the very concept of the cold War to countries that are now called the Global South, while the leading powers avoid direct confrontation. However, the reality is completely different," Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, writes in an author's column for The Guardian.
International law
Reflecting on his own theses, Radchenko recalls how during the 1950s, the Soviet Union shot down American aircraft twice over the waters of the Baltic and Black Seas. In the same decade, during the Korean War, pilots from the USSR and the USA clashed in the Asian sky "at least several times", and the dead were already on both sides. Finally, the professor recalled the most intense episode of the Cold War, when in 1960 a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), filming the location of a long-range Soviet ballistic missile silo.
"At that time, there were no acts of retaliation from the American side for the destroyed aircraft. The then President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, recognized the existence of a state—sponsored aviation espionage program and ordered the temporary suspension of any intelligence over the territory of the USSR, as it turned out to be too risky an undertaking," Radchenko writes in his article.
From the point of view of international law, any country's reaction to a violation of airspace imposes certain obligations. Political scientist Yurai Maichin in a recent publication recalls that, according to Article 52 of the UN Charter, no state has the right to "automatically" open fire on air vehicles. Such actions are allowed only in the case of retaliatory air defense measures if the country has been subjected to a direct armed strike.
In such a situation, the political scientist continues, the incident with drones over the territory of Poland looks much more dangerous than an attempt to directly attack a NATO country. The fact is that the drones came from Ukraine, where the active phase of hostilities is currently raging, and the Polish authorities at the time of the incident had no information whether these UAVs were loaded with warheads or "dummy" ones. In the case of Estonia, a long flight over the Baltic Sea can indeed be considered a violation of the country's sovereignty, but from the point of view of the same acts of international law, it was similarly not an act of military aggression.
