According to the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence, on 20 June 2026 NATO Baltic Air Policing fighters scrambled to identify a three-aircraft Russian formation transiting from Kaliningrad Oblast through international airspace toward mainland Russia. The formation comprised an AN-30 aerial reconnaissance aircraft, an Su-24MR tactical reconnaissance jet, and an Su-35 air superiority fighter. All three flew without activated radar transponders, without filed flight plans, and without radio contact with the Regional Flight Control Centre (RSVC) — the deliberate non-compliance pattern the Lithuanian MoD has catalogued across each documented Russian military transit from Kaliningrad in 2026.
Illustrative file photo. This image is not from the incident described.
Two reconnaissance platforms flew together in one Kaliningrad sortie
The AN-30 (NATO reporting name: Clank) is not a combat aircraft. It is a specialist aerial survey turboprop derived from the An-24, built for imagery intelligence collection through a glazed nose section and downward-facing camera bays. Pairing it with an Su-24MR — the dedicated tactical reconnaissance variant of the Su-24 Fencer, which replaces the strike aircraft's bomb load with side-looking sensors and film cameras — makes the 20 June sortie a structured dual-sensor collection mission, not a routine transit. The Su-35 Flanker-E flying alongside provided air superiority cover, a configuration consistent with a protected reconnaissance task in contested international airspace. The Baltic Sea route from Kaliningrad to mainland Russia keeps both reconnaissance types in sensor range of the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian coastlines for much of the transit.
Three more scrambles preceded the 20 June formation
The June 20 identification closed out four NATO air policing missions in the week of 15–21 June 2026. On 16 June, NATO fighters were scrambled to identify an Su-24MR conducting a round-trip from Kaliningrad and back — the same aircraft type that reappeared in the June 20 formation. A Tu-214 transport was simultaneously spotted on 16 June flying from mainland Russia to Kaliningrad with its transponder active and radio contact established but without a filed flight plan; partial compliance of that form is unusual enough that the Lithuanian MoD catalogued it separately. On 19 June, two separate scrambles were launched: one for an Su-34 Fullback strike fighter making a Kaliningrad round-trip, and a second for an Su-30SM multi-role fighter on the same route — both fully dark, no transponder, no plan, no radio.
Transponders off is a deliberate choice, not a technical failure
The same three-point pattern appears in each identification the Lithuanian MoD recorded this week: transponder switched off, no flight plan filed, no radio contact with the RSVC. An aircraft without an active transponder is invisible to civil Mode S radar and to the traffic-collision avoidance systems aboard commercial flights transiting the same airspace. The Baltic Sea airspace between Kaliningrad and mainland Russia carries scheduled air traffic; a military formation transiting dark through that airspace is simultaneously an intelligence-collection asset and an unannounced hazard to civil aviation.
NATO Baltic Air Policing sorties — operating out of Šiauliai Air Base in Lithuania — provide the visual identification and physical escort that the civil ATC system cannot. The 20 June sortie is the most structured of the week's four scrambles, combining two reconnaissance platforms with dedicated fighter cover, but the compliance picture is identical across all four.
The wind layer shows Baltic Sea conditions, not a flight path reconstruction
The AirVeto map shows atmospheric conditions over the Baltic Sea during the 20 June event window. For powered military aircraft following planned routes, the wind field does not reconstruct a flight path or infer a departure point — unlike contraband-balloon events where 700 hPa wind direction is the primary analytical output. The wind layer here is regional context: the conditions over the Baltic Sea at the time the formation transited. Full methodology is at AirVeto methodology.
The Nautrēni drone shoot-down of 8 June 2026 — in which French Rafale B jets of the same NATO Baltic Air Policing mission destroyed a foreign UAV over Latvia — is the closest recent incident involving the same air-policing detachment: Nautrēni drone shoot-down, 8 June 2026.