Back to Cold War as Russia probes NATO defences (Source AFP) Nuclear-capable Russian bombers in European airspace, NATO intercepts, a foreign submarine in Swedish waters — the fall-out from the Ukraine crisis feels like a return to Cold War days. NATO has intercepted Russian aircraft on more than 100 occasions so far this year, three times more than all 2013, its new head Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. “We have seen a substantial increase but we are doing what we are supposed to do. We intercept, we are ready and we react,” Stoltenberg said, repeating that NATO must deal with Russia from a position of strength. Earlier this week, NATO tracked and intercepted four groups of Russian warplanes, including long-range TU-95 strategic bombers and sophisticated fighters “conducting significant military manoeuvres” over the Baltic Sea, North Sea/Atlantic Ocean and the Black Sea. “These sizeable Russian flights represent an unusual level of air activity,” NATO said. A few days earlier, a Russian Ilyushin IL-20 spy plane which took off from the Russian Baltic coast enclave of Kaliningrad briefly crossed into Estonian airspace, all part of a pattern of increased testing of NATO’s eastern flank. Viewed from Moscow, there is no cause for concern — Russia is simply asserting its position after long years of decline and NATO and the West had better get used to it. “Before, our aircraft did not fly. Now they do,” said Igor Korotchenko, a member of the Russian defence ministry’s advisory group. “This is nothing but a return to the military practices of a country which thinks about its defence and the readiness of its military,” Korotchenko told AFP.