NATO Scrambles Fighter Jets To Intercept Russia Spy Planes
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Germany scrambled its fighter jets to intercept a Russian aircraft over the Baltic Sea, it has been reported, in the latest incident involving Moscow's forces over the body of water dubbed a "NATO Lake."
The German newspaper Bild reported that a Russian Ilyushin Il-20M reconnaissance plane flew over the area with its transponder switched off and without a flight plan filed before the German Air Force scrambled its aircraft.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry and the German Air Force for comment.
This image from June 6, 2024 shows a Eurofighter Typhoon at Ramstein Air Base during a in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany.
This image from June 6, 2024 shows a Eurofighter Typhoon at Ramstein Air Base during a in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany.Why It Matters
NATO members have reported in the region a spike in incidents of Russian belligerence of which Friday's is the latest. Since the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance, the Baltic Sea is called a "NATO Lake" and given the location within it, of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, an area of strategic military significance as tensions with Moscow continue to increase.
What To Know
Bild reported that the Russian Il-20M took off from Kaliningrad with its transponder switched off and without a flight plan filed around 9 a.m. Friday.
It was heading towards international airspace near Poland and Germany but was detected by NATO radar which alerted Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, which scrambled two Eurofighter jets from Laage Air Base near Rostock.
The Eurofighter jets established visual contact with the Russian plane about 60 miles from the German coast before changing course north 25 miles from the island of Usedom, thus remaining in international airspace.
The German Eurofighters returned to base just after 11 a.m. in an incident that comes only weeks after British fighter jets based in Poland intercepted two Russian reconnaissance aircraft.
Also this month, fighter jets from Lithuania conducting NATO's air policing mission in the Baltic region were scrambled three times within a week to identify and escort Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM aircraft violating flight regulations.
In May, NATO jets were scrambled four times to identify and escort Russian aircraft violating flight rules in the Baltic and it was reported that Polish fighter jets intercepted a Russian Su-24 bomber in international airspace over the region.
What People Are Saying
German newspaper Bild, according to a translation, said the Russian Ilyushin plane "was detected by NATO radar systems and flew without radio contact from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, coming directly towards international airspace near Poland and Germany."
What Happens Next
Russia is likely to continue with hybrid activities in Europe, and in the Baltic region, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) which analyzes conflict trends.
In a report given to Newsweek this month, ACLED that suspected Russian destabilization activities are increasing again across Europe following a lull at the start of 2025. These include arson and foiled sabotage plots, "in addition to increased tensions in the Baltic Sea."
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Newsweek
13 hours ago
- Newsweek
NATO Scrambles Fighter Jets To Intercept Russia Spy Planes
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Germany scrambled its fighter jets to intercept a Russian aircraft over the Baltic Sea, it has been reported, in the latest incident involving Moscow's forces over the body of water dubbed a "NATO Lake." The German newspaper Bild reported that a Russian Ilyushin Il-20M reconnaissance plane flew over the area with its transponder switched off and without a flight plan filed before the German Air Force scrambled its aircraft. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry and the German Air Force for comment. This image from June 6, 2024 shows a Eurofighter Typhoon at Ramstein Air Base during a in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany. This image from June 6, 2024 shows a Eurofighter Typhoon at Ramstein Air Base during a in Ramstein-Miesenbach, It Matters NATO members have reported in the region a spike in incidents of Russian belligerence of which Friday's is the latest. Since the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance, the Baltic Sea is called a "NATO Lake" and given the location within it, of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, an area of strategic military significance as tensions with Moscow continue to increase. What To Know Bild reported that the Russian Il-20M took off from Kaliningrad with its transponder switched off and without a flight plan filed around 9 a.m. Friday. It was heading towards international airspace near Poland and Germany but was detected by NATO radar which alerted Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, which scrambled two Eurofighter jets from Laage Air Base near Rostock. The Eurofighter jets established visual contact with the Russian plane about 60 miles from the German coast before changing course north 25 miles from the island of Usedom, thus remaining in international airspace. The German Eurofighters returned to base just after 11 a.m. in an incident that comes only weeks after British fighter jets based in Poland intercepted two Russian reconnaissance aircraft. Also this month, fighter jets from Lithuania conducting NATO's air policing mission in the Baltic region were scrambled three times within a week to identify and escort Russian Sukhoi Su-30SM aircraft violating flight regulations. In May, NATO jets were scrambled four times to identify and escort Russian aircraft violating flight rules in the Baltic and it was reported that Polish fighter jets intercepted a Russian Su-24 bomber in international airspace over the region. What People Are Saying German newspaper Bild, according to a translation, said the Russian Ilyushin plane "was detected by NATO radar systems and flew without radio contact from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, coming directly towards international airspace near Poland and Germany." What Happens Next Russia is likely to continue with hybrid activities in Europe, and in the Baltic region, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) which analyzes conflict trends. In a report given to Newsweek this month, ACLED that suspected Russian destabilization activities are increasing again across Europe following a lull at the start of 2025. These include arson and foiled sabotage plots, "in addition to increased tensions in the Baltic Sea."
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
I perfected pie by baking 60 a day. You can get it right the first time
Despite being an obsessive baker since I was a little kid, until I was 31 I had never baked a pie from scratch. Meaning: I had never made pie dough. And pie dough scared me. Cutting butter into flour? What did that mean anyway? A tender (as opposed to tough) crust? Aren't 'tender' and 'tough' personality traits? And what was up with the ice water? I wasn't sure I wanted to know. At the time, I was writing primarily for women's magazines and taking odd jobs to make ends meet. My criterion for these jobs was that it was something that interested me and wouldn't interfere with my dream of being a writer. Fun, creative, dead-end jobs were my wheelhouse. So when my editor at Seventeen told me about a job opportunity as a summer pie baker in the most beautiful shop she'd ever seen, in a fishing-village-turned-billionaire-community in the Hamptons, I borrowed a friend's beaten-up Volvo and drove two hours east, to a whitewashed shack nestled in farm fields, and interviewed the German matriarch who owned and ran the place with her daughter. 'You seem like a bright girl,' she said. 'You'll learn.' If you don't have a German grandmother to teach you how to make pie dough, you should seriously consider finding one. By the end of my first week, I was practically a pro. And by the end of that summer, I knew all of the tricks. I learned that when it comes to pie crust, butter isn't necessarily king. That flour can give a filling that cloudy look. That a white, raw bottom crust was pie 911. And, as Anna says, the way a person crimped the edges of their pie dough was like their signature; no two are the same. I learned that a big ol' sprinkling of sugar on top before baking the pie covered up any imperfections in the crust and that perfection wasn't what we were going for anyway. We were going for homemade with — I hate to sound cliché here — love. And that, for even the novice pie baker, is an attainable goal. The mother's name was Anna, pronounced 'AHHH-na' not 'Anne-Uh.' On my first day, Anna stood by my elbow and taught me the ins and outs of pie dough. The ingredient list is simple: all-purpose flour, some kind of solid fat (butter, margarine, Crisco, lard or a combination), salt and ice water, which she taught me was to keep the fat cold. By keeping the fat — let's say butter — cold, the butter melts in the oven during the baking process, creating tiny steam pockets, which result in the layers that make the crust flaky. In baking terms, tough is the opposite of tender. A tough crust — and you've had them — is hard, crunchy and dense. A tender crust, by contrast, is flaky and light. A tender crust is the goal. To achieve the tender holy grail of crusts, the most important factor is not to overwork the dough. You work it exactly as much as necessary to transform it from a shaggy mess into a homogeneous mass. Working the dough develops the gluten in flour, which makes for a tough pie crust. Resting the dough before rolling it out (also key) relaxes the gluten. I made 27 pies my first day, and I wasn't any more proud walking across the stage as a graduate at UC Berkeley a decade earlier. 'Why only 27?' Anna asked. She told me that moving forward, I should aim for 60 pies a day. By day three or four, I was able to make 60, and soon I was hitting that goal with hours to spare, to bake whatever I wanted. 'You have light hands,' Anna said one day, looking over my shoulder. 'You're a good baker.' Some 30 years later, I still feel a big blueberry-colored heart swelling in my chest as I hear those words. (Anna died in 2015 at the age of 81, sadly hit and killed by a car while crossing the street.) We made the dough in two-pie batches, which is essential to a tender crust (because it's too easy to overmix a larger batch of dough). After making enough dough for 60 pies, which is 120 rounds (top and bottom), or 30 batches of dough, I put those in the walk-in (refrigerator) to chill and rest. Then I moved onto forming the shells from dough that had been resting already. I did those 10 at a time. After I got the pie shells in the fridge, one of the prep cooks would have a bowl as big as half a beach ball full of the correct amount of fruit for filling up to 10 pies. Sometimes the fruit was fresh, purchased from Pike Farms, which has a stand next to the shop. But very often it was IQF fruit, an industry term for 'individually quick frozen.' This process of rapid-freezing the fruit preserves the flavor and prevents ice crystals from forming and the fruit from sticking together. Many, but not all, commercial frozen fruit is IQF. Premium frozen fruit, picked and frozen at peak ripeness, is often better than fresh fruit. I carried that giant bowl to my station, mixed it with granulated sugar, cornstarch for thickening (flour can make the filling cloudy), lemon juice to brighten the flavor, and one spice (cinnamon, nutmeg or clove, depending on the fruit), and proceeded to fill and cover my pies with either a second crust or crumble topping kept in a giant vat in the freezer. I made six different types of fruit pies a day, each one identifiable by a different cookie-cutter opening in the center. We froze the pies and pulled them out, brushed the crusts (not the crumble) with cream, sprinkled sugar over the cream and baked them off as needed, so there was always a selection of freshly baked fruit pies. That's a lot of information, I know, if you don't plan on opening a bakery in the heart of a summer community where you might find yourself in need of 20 to 40 fruit pies to sell in a single day. But I might have taught you a few things in the telling: The first thing you need when making fruit pie is a good recipe for crust. There are many. The formula we used at that shop was 4 cups of flour to 3 sticks (1½ cups) of whatever fat one might want to use. This might have been at the time (maybe still!) the most expensive prepared food store on the planet. The pie was the secret 'deal.' It was half the price of a French tart. But the big difference between the two, I soon learned, was that the French tart (which I also made, once I got good) was made with butter and the pie was made with — get ready for it — margarine! 'It makes for a flakier crust,' Anna said, dismissing me when I asked her why, and walked away. I've used that formula in different combinations until recently. Now I use butter. Per Martha Stewart's ratio of flour and butter, I add a bit more and also the smallest amount of sugar. Per Nancy Silverton's pie dough recipe, I add some cream, which she does to add fat, flavor and color to the dough, along with the ice water, and double up on the salt. It's a good flaky dough, and easy to work with. The filling for fruit pies can be any ripe (or frozen!) spring or summer fruit, including strawberry rhubarb (yes, I know rhubarb is a vegetable), blueberry, mixed berry, sour cherry, peach, nectarines and plums (Italian prune plums are the best if you can find them), or a combination of any of the above. Anna wasn't big on mixing fruits, except when it came to berries, and I have followed her lead out of respect. But don't let that stop you. Here are two options for a mixed berry pie: a traditional round pie with a crunchy crumble top, and a slab pie, which is a relatively new invention, made in a sheet pan. It's easy to carry, has less filling for the amount of crust, and you can eat it with your hands. Think of it as a giant Pop-Tart. And who doesn't want to think about a giant Pop-Tart. For the filling, I cook the sugar first to make a caramel, which adds some depth of flavor, and then add the blackberries; I found that even after over an hour of baking, they didn't break down, and everyone I shared the pie with left whole blackberries on their plate. I add the cornstarch here too, as insurance to make certain the fruit filling sets. For both pies, I bake them on the lowest rack of the oven on a preheated baking sheet to ensure a browned, crisp bottom crust. Whatever shape your pie, whatever fruit you use and whether or not your fruit sets perfectly, pie is just good, wholesome deliciousness. Yes, making dough requires a bit of skill (everything you need to know is in these recipes), but the worst thing that can happen, really, is a messy pie that you end up eating from a bowl. And seriously, how bad would that be?
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Boston Globe
After finding buried WWII dog tags, a Dutch man spent years trying to return them to the owner's family
Advertisement Stemkens feels compelled to spend 'way too much time on Google Maps' researching the places where troops may have been in battle, or transit, or in camps. Then, he says, 'I just go and see.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In the forests he is laser-focused and silent, swinging his metal detector from side to side, like a priest with an incense burner during Mass. He's on his third metal detector in six years. The first two fell apart, 'because I used them so much.' His newest one is wireless and waterproof, and cost about 700 euros, or roughly $800. He's used them to unearth hundreds of artifacts of US, British, and German origin: gas masks, canteens, mess kits, buttons, badges, service medals, a bayonet. He found a medal with a swastika insignia worn on military caps, and a Advertisement 'All of it has history,' Stemkens says. 'Everything has a story.' And on a sunny spring day in 2022, something he found put him at the center of one of these stories. It has connected him, across space and time, to a very grateful family in Massachusetts. A Nazi insignia is among Laurent Stemkens finds with his metal detector. Thilo Schmülgen for the boston globe It happened near a small village in the German municipality of Gangelt. The avid detectorist had been lucky there before — his research indicated the area was related to the Allied counterattack after the He tells me this as we stand together in the dense and peaceful forest where he made his find on May 7, 2022. As on this day, birdsong filled the air as his metal detector emitted its tell-tale high-pitched beep. Stemkens started digging. A few inches down, he spotted two heavy pieces of iron covered in rubber, which he recognized as parts of a Sherman tank track. He also found the large pins used to hold the track together. The rubber had been blown apart, which was 'clear evidence,' he says, that the tank tracks had been in some kind of explosion. An hour later, Stemkens got another hit from his metal detector, closer to the surface. It was a tiny piece of tarnished metal on a short chain — a US military dog tag stamped with a soldier's name, service number, next of kin, and address. Advertisement Louis Gertzberg 31302796 Sally Gertzberg 91 Granville Ave Malden, Mass. 'I thought, holy [expletive], ' Stemkens recalls. His hands shook. In the parlance of metal detecting, a dog tag is a once-in-a-lifetime 'bucket lister.' Most of his finds are interesting but relatively soulless. A dog tag is personal. It once rested against a man's chest, ensuring that if the worst were to happen, his identity would still be known. Somewhere, Stemkens thought, there might be a family in limbo. 'At that moment I wanted his family to know,' he says. If he couldn't reach them, he would 'feel eternally bad.' But finding the dog tag was the easy part. It would take two more years of digging — this time in archives — to discover who the soldier's family was, because even though Louis Gertzberg survived the war, he had stopped being Louis Gertzberg. Relics and metal pieces Laurent Stemkens has found are on display at his home in the Netherlands. Thilo Schmülgen for the boston globe M ilitary records tell facts but not stories. Gertzberg's record tells us he was drafted at age 18, on March 10, 1943. He was married, lived at 91 Granville Avenue, in Malden, and worked as a watchmaker. He fought in the US Army's D Company of the 66th Armored Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division — Advertisement Gertzberg was swept up in the thick of battle across Europe, landing in Normandy and fighting with his company in northern France, the Rhineland, the Ardennes, and Central Europe. His regiment After his military service ended, he returned to Malden, went back to work at the jewelry store where he'd been employed, and started a family with his wife, Sally. Like so many veterans, he put his time in the service behind him, rarely speaking about his wartime experiences. Eventually, the veteran became an entrepreneur. He and a partner opened a wholesale jewelry and watch repair business at 333 Washington Street in Boston. And Gertzberg also made a dramatic decision soon after he came home. On April 18, 1946, he legally changed his name. Louis Gertzberg became Lionel Gay. A young Louis Gertzberg's Army photo, along with his dog tag, which lay in the soil of a German forest for decades. Jason Paige Smith for The Boston Globe 'There was a lot of antisemitism back then, and he wanted to have a neutral name,' says his eldest son, Allen Gay, a 78-year-old who lives in Milford. 'He was afraid for his family and afraid for his business.' In the years between the first and second World Wars, antisemitism was overt. 'There were Jews who felt it's too dangerous being a Jew in this world,' says Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University. Advertisement The pressures of World War II only intensified matters, according to Kirsten Fermaglich, professor of history and Jewish studies at Michigan State University. Her most recent book, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name, explores the history of Jewish name-changing in the United States in the 20th century. Fermaglich combed Manhattan city court records for name-change petitions in the 20th century and discovered that the practice during the war years was, she says, a 'phenomenon.' Jewish-sounding names were disproportionately represented in the petitions, which surged to the highest level in 1946 — the year Gertzberg changed his name. About 40 percent of the petitioners were veterans or veterans' wives. 'There were rumors and propaganda that peg Jews as war profiteers and draft dodgers and a lot of Jewish veterans felt really uncomfortable in the military,' Fermaglich says. The name change threw Stemkens off in his search. From time to time, over the next two years, he Googled 'Louis Gertzberg' on enlistment record websites, but had no luck. Finally, he asked for help from an acquaintance who knew more about military documents. Up popped Gertzberg's draft registration card, with a Malden address and the name of his employer: Joseph Gann, 387 Washington Street, Boston. M ore than 90 years later, Joseph Gann Jewelers is still at 387 Washington Street. Joseph Gann worked there until he was 98, and the business passed to his son Herb. Late last July, one of Herb's four children, Joshua Gann, who co-owns the store now with two of his siblings, got a WhatsApp text from the Netherlands. It had been forwarded to him from the store's customer service number, which Stemkens had found online: Advertisement This might seem like a weird question but 2 years ago I found a world war 2 dogtag here in Europe with my metal detector. And after some research I found his registration card. He must have been employed at your store when he went into world war 2 as a soldier. It would be nice if you could help me find the family of the dogtag owner. Joshua asked his father if he remembered Gertzberg. He didn't, nor did his sister Shirley Saunders. But she volunteers with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston and consulted her friend David Rosen, who does research there and happened to be from Malden. Using Rosen found Gertzberg's 1942 draft registration card, listing his address in Malden. A 1940 US Census record showed a Gertzberg family at the same address — and a son listed as Lionel who was the same age as the soldier Louis. Laurent Stemkens's metal detector. Thilo Schmülgen for the boston globe Rosen then searched Gertzberg family trees on and confirmed that Gertzberg and Lionel Gay were the same person. Louis was his legal name, and Lionel his nickname. Rosen immediately messaged the person who'd published the family tree: Jason Gay, the soldier's 49-year-old grandson, who lives in Sharon. 'I was like, holy [expletive], ' Jason says. The family and Stemkens held a celebratory 45-minute Zoom call. 'I talked about my story and how I found the family,' Stemkens says. 'They told me stories and their memories about Lionel in the war and showed me pictures.' Afterward, Stemkens texted Joshua Gann to fill him in. 'It was amazing! It was just wonderful and they were so happy.' Happy, yes — and awed by such kindness. 'This was a 25-year-old kid,' says Allen Gay, Jason's father. 'He had no reason to do this. It was so heartwarming.' Terrified that the dog tag might get lost when he shipped it, Stemkens packed it in a cigarette box wrapped in layers of bubble wrap, which he placed inside a large shipping box and sent to Jason Gay, tracking its journey across the Atlantic. It arrived the week of what would have been Lionel's 101st birthday. 'I put it in my hand and I was actually shaking,' Allen says. His father had died in 1989 at age 66, from heart disease. 'It was like he was there with me. Like being contacted from the great beyond. I was very, very touched, almost to the point of tears.' With a little help, Dutch detectorist Stemkens had sleuthed the identity of the US soldier who'd worn that dog tag in a German forest at the height of war. But one mystery remains unsolved by Stemkens — or by anyone else: Why was Gertzberg's dog tag left there to begin with? For Jeffry Gay, Lionel's youngest son, this unanswered question is as much of an enigma as his dad sometimes could be. 'My father was not of a mind to speak of those things,' Jeffry says. His father never marched in Veterans Day parades. His uniform was consigned to the attic. 'I asked questions all the time and he would not answer me,' Allen Gay tells me on a Saturday morning in May, when three generations of Lionel's family — two sons, grandchildren, and cousins — gathered at his home in Milford, and on Zoom, to reminisce. 'A couple of times I'd put his uniform on and he put a stop to it. He said, 'I don't want you wearing it again.'' Jason Gay, at home in Sharon, holds his late grandfather's Army uniform, photo, and newly-found dog tag, in June. Jason Paige Smith for The Boston Globe It seemed hard to reconcile the man they remembered as jovial and funny — who once posed for a picture sporting a top hat with his uniform, and who was a whiz at card tricks — with the man who'd grow taciturn if questions probed too much. 'I once asked him if he'd ever killed anybody in the war,' Allen's wife, Carol Gay, says. 'It was the only time I saw him get upset with me. He said, 'Yes I have, and don't ever ask me again.'' No one understood why he brought a Nazi armband home from the war. Or why there was a three-week period when he stopped writing letters home. Or how his wedding ring got badly broken while he was away. 'There were conversations that occurred on our front porch where we sat almost every night, or at the kitchen table,' Jeffry says. 'He opened up more to me than my brothers because I was the youngest and more time had passed since the war.' In hazy clouds of cigarette smoke, Lionel would divulge snippets of information about his wartime experience. He'd been a tank commander. He'd been involved in the Battle of the Bulge. He was held behind enemy lines for three weeks. He hid in a coal bin in a German basement. 'A German soldier came down and either found him, or homeowners told him he was down there, and roused him out of the coal bin,' Jeffry says. 'My father said the other guy trained a gun on him and marched him up the stairs.' His father had grabbed both railings with his hands and kicked backward, 'so the guy would fall or something. He was very clear about this.' The family has been trying to cobble together these collected anecdotes into a complete story. Maybe his tank had been hit by a shell in that forest in Gangelt, blowing him out and smashing his ring. Or maybe he ripped off his dog tag and flung it on the ground so the Germans wouldn't identify him as Jewish. One thing they are certain about: Lionel Gay would have been thrilled that his dog tag found its way home. 'He would have eaten this story up,' Carol says. 'He wanted to be sure we thought about him on his birthday.' The dog tag bearing the name Louis Gertzberg, meanwhile, rests on Jason's desk at his home office in Sharon, waiting to be framed and preserved forever. Linda Matchan is a frequent contributor to Globe Magazine. Send comments to magazine@
