NATO member scrambles fighter jets over incursion from Ukraine — Analysis
Hungary was safe from the unidentified incident involving an aircraft, as reported by Defense Ministry
The Defense Ministry said that Hungary had scrambled Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircrafts Monday to respond to an unknown aircraft from Ukraine entering its airspace.
The mission was ordered by NATO’s Joint Air Operations Center, a Monday evening report said. Around noon radars detected that the aircraft was moving towards Slovakia from eastern Hungary’s airspace. Slovakia borders Hungary to the north.
According to the military, they patrolled the area and made sure there wasn’t any threat. They then returned to Kecskemet Air Base, central Bacs-Kiskun County. The identities of the plane were not released to the public.
MTI, the news agency MTI reported that this was the third occasion in three days when the Hungarian military had to scramble fighter jets. After reports that bombs had been dropped on civilian aircraft flying through Hungarian or Polish airspace, warplanes were forced to take to the skies in the previous two cases.
An additional incident took place in Eastern Europe in March, when an older Soviet Tu-141 drone flew from Ukraine to Croatia over Romania and Hungary before colliding in a Zagreb park.
Although no injuries were sustained, officials from Croatia acknowledged that the incident exposed major weaknesses in Croatia’s defense capabilities. Although the aircraft was thought to be Ukrainian in origin, it spent about 40 minutes in Hungarian aviation.
Last week in Romania, another small reconnaissance drone was discovered. It appeared to have been used by Russian forces for short-range missions. The country’s defense minister dismissed it as insignificant.
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