Norway’s government said Tuesday that Russia had violated Norwegian airspace three times this year, branding the incidents “not acceptable”.
On Aug. 18, an SU-33 fighter jet was in Norwegian airspace for a minute, it said.
Previously, a Russian SU-24 fighter jet entered Norwegian airspace for four minutes on April 25, followed by a L410 Turbolet transport aircraft that stayed for three minutes on July 24.
“Russia has violated Norwegian airspace on three occasions this spring and summer,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said in a statement.
“We cannot determine whether this was done intentionally or due to navigation errors. Regardless of the cause, this is not acceptable,” Store said.
The Russian embassy in Oslo said Norway’s claims were “not confirmed by objective Russian surveillance data.”
It also said that NATO countries were responsible for raising tensions in northern Europe by holding military exercises in which Russia was designated as the enemy.
NATO on Tuesday warned Russia to stop an “escalatory” pattern of airspace violations along its eastern flank.
“Russia should be in no doubt: NATO and allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions,” NATO’s 32 member states said in a statement.
Store said “the events in Norway are smaller in scale than the violations against Estonia, Poland, and Romania, in terms of both location and duration. Nevertheless, these are events we take very seriously.”
A member of NATO, Norway is often described as the “eyes and ears” of the transatlantic defence alliance in the far north, where it shares a maritime border and a 198-km (132-mile) land border with Russia.