Two days ago in the Baltic Sea, as NATO forces guarded underwater cables, a French Air Force reconnaissance plane was targeted by the Russian military.
This was another incident between Russia and France, which confirms itself as the Western country most targeted by Putin.
"It is an act of war that could be interpreted as an open and direct attack against the French aircraft," aeronautics and defense expert Xavier Tytelman commented on the Tf1 network.
The French aircraft Atlantic 2 took off from Brittany on Wednesday. It spent nearly five hours off the coast of Sweden and the Baltic, checking around 200 ships, mostly commercial, without spotting any suspicious vessels. According to witnesses, the French aircraft was targeted by Russian military radar, an action that could have led to a “collision.”
In recent months, numerous underwater telecommunications and power supply cables have been damaged in the Baltic Sea, acts that many Western experts and leaders say are part of the "hybrid warfare" waged by Russia against Ukraine's European allies.
The Atlantic 2 had already been the victim of a "jamming attempt and a radar signal that it was about to open fire," according to a statement from the French military.
“Pointing radar at our aircraft in international waters is an aggressive act,” explains Colonel Guillaume Vernet, spokesman for the French General Staff. In military jargon, the term “lighting” refers to the act of aiming at a target using radar.
Such an initiative "is not exceptional in this field" and "shows that Russia reacts to our initiatives," he added. Russia therefore "expressed its hostility in a restrained manner," but "the professional behavior of the French crew avoided escalation, allowing the mission to continue," Colonel Vernet declared.
The incident with the French plane is "extremely serious and goes far beyond the borders of Europe," commented US General Christopher Cavoli, commander of NATO forces in Europe, during a press conference in Brussels. (A2 Televizion)
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