Gulf of Finland, 24 Sep 2026 - Finnish and Swedish jets intercept

Finnish and Swedish fighter jets intercepted a Russian military formation over the Gulf of Finland on September 24, 2026, the Finnish Air Force said. It's the ninth Finland event AirVeto has reconstructed in 2026, and the second involving crewed Russian military aircraft.

Finnish Hornets and Swedish Gripens flew their first joint identification mission

Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) jets from both countries were scrambled to intercept and identify the Russian aircraft in international airspace. The Finnish Air Force's Air Operations Centre led the mission. Finland flew F/A-18 Hornets and Sweden flew JAS 39 Gripens.

The Finnish Air Force called it the first joint operational identification mission for the two air forces.

The Russian formation mixed a transport with two fighter types

The jets identified a Russian detachment made up of three aircraft types:

• a Tu-134 transport aircraft (NATO reporting name "Crusty")
• MiG-31 fighter jets ("Foxhound")
• Su-30 fighter jets ("Flanker-H")

The Finnish Air Force published photos of the MiG-31 and the Su-30, credited to the Swedish Air Force.

Cross-basing rights made the joint scramble possible this autumn

Colonel Vesa Mäntylä, Deputy Chief of Staff at Air Force Command Finland, tied the mission to a new arrangement.

The deeper cooperation that began this autumn enables joint identification missions and allows QRA fighter jets to operate from the other country's air bases.

Major General Jonas Wikman, Commander of the Swedish Air Force, said the two forces "can now operate seamlessly together - as air forces, as nations and as Allies."

The two air forces have flown Cross Border Training sorties on an almost weekly basis for years, per the Finnish Air Force. They also coordinate with the NATO Baltic Air Policing detachments in the Baltic Sea region. In late August, Sweden's government ordered units including Gripens and naval vessels to patrol along Finland's border with Russia, UNITED24 Media reported, after a request from Finnish authorities.

Wind conditions over the Gulf of Finland

At 00:00 local time on September 24, the start of the day the release names, the wind at 3,000 m blew from the SE at 35.5 km/h. At 2,000 m it came from the E at 21.1 km/h.

This reconstruction is based on the Finnish Air Force's release, reporting by UNITED24 Media, and AirVeto's wind-model data for the event window. AirVeto's model is described on the methodology page.

The intercept came 35 days after an Il-20 crossed into Finnish airspace

AirVeto's Finland archive for 2026 now holds nine events. Seven involved drones, from the Kouvola drone crash in March to the Geoscan drone found near Porvoo. The only other crewed-aircraft case is the Russian Il-20 that crossed into Finnish airspace south of Utö on August 20.

That Il-20 entered Finnish airspace. This formation stayed in international airspace, and two countries met it instead of one. Follow the region's live wind picture on AirVeto Finland.