As Russia's military buildup near Ukraine accelerated early this year, military planners at NATO began preparing to dispatch scores of fighter jets and surveillance aircraft into the skies near Russia and Ukraine. It was a warning to Moscow not to make the mistake of targeting any member country.
In the lead-up to the Feb. 24 invasion, the alliance’s Combined Air Operations Centre in Uedem, western Germany, shifted gears. A few dozen military personnel now simultaneously manage up to 30 aircraft in skies from the northern tip of Norway down to Slovakia.
Six Boeing E-3A surveillance planes from NATO’s ageing fleet of early warning and control aircraft help create an “air picture” to share with member nations. These “eyes in the sky” do not fly into Ukraine or Russia, but can see up to 400 kilometres across borders. “There is always the fog of war, and we don’t want to have NATO assets close by because even unintentionally you might have some losses,” said Major General Harold Van Pee, commander of the NATO facility in Uedem.
But shadowing them with aircraft is a high-risk endeavour, particularly at night, in poor weather or when the missiles hug the ground, flying so low that electrical pylons and cables become a danger. “We have to be convinced that there is a credible threat” to go after one, Van Pee said. The drone weighed just over 6 tons. Both Russia and Ukraine denied launching it. Military officers and NATO officials refuse to comment on the incident until an investigation is completed.
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