Airspace violations stabilise following policy switch
Finland began publishing information on airspace violations seven years ago. Since then, there have been more intrusions from Swedish aircraft than Russian ones.
Finnish airspace is usually violated two or three times a year. It was not always like this: in 2004-2005 there were a dozen violations.
The government decided to try to reduce the number by publicising each intrusion, and when a Russian transport plane crossed into Finnish airspace in August 2005, the information was publicised immediately.
The strategy worked, and the number of intrusions fell immediately.
Since August 2005, there have been a total of 15 airspace violations by foreign governments’ aircraft. Information published by the Defence Forces shows that Swedish and planes have entered Finnish airspace five times each. US aircraft were responsible for four airspace violations.
Former secretary of the Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security policy, Markus Lyra, suggests that the most significant reason for the improvement could be political.
”A lively debate on NATO membership ensued in Finland, and Russians didn’t want that,” explains Lyra.
At the same time as airspace violations peaked in 2004-2005, NATO began patrolling the airpsace in Baltic countries. Lyra remembers that before 2005 there were around 3-4 instances of airspace violations each year.
The former diplomat attributes the reduction to political stability in the Baltic sea region.
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